Footwear company - Where to go from here?

[yourhostingspot.com]

Many of you have heard of my company Wilbs Shoes as I've been a member of the community for a couple years now. I've been running the company for going on 5 years.
- We have our shoes & apparel in 22 stores and we retail online.
- We have riders & are adding to our team
- We are releasing a new line of hand made shoes (You can see a brief on the website) Wilbs Shoes - An original skate shoes company from the east coast
- We already attend expos
- We've started our own manufacturing division
One thing I would like to look into is manufacturing footwear: sandals & Sneakers for other companies with putting their logo on them.

Where do I go from here? I have a few ideas but brainstorming amongst other young entrepreneurs is what I would like to do. See if any good ideas come up. I appreciate you taking the time to suggest new ideas.

Thanks in advance.

Tom

[jsayers]

Let me start by saying great accomplishments so far with your business.

I think you should spend some time/money on search engine optimization services for your website. I see you ranking on page 4 for "skate shoes company" on Google, but nowhere in sight for "skate shoes". If you get in the top 10 I think that alone will take your business to the next level!

For example:
For my website (apsley.ca) I get ranking #2 for "Apsley" and "Apsley Ontario". Other sites I've done such as jacklakelandscape.com gets #1 ranking for "landscaping apsley". You want your website to achieve #1 or #2 ranking for "skate shoes" or something along those lines. Your business will multiply.

[chanson]

Tom,

Looks like you are doing really well so far! I like the idea of making use of your manufacturing abilities and offering that as wholesale to the industry(would you struggle with competition from outside north america?).

Social media or other web marketing(such as SEO as mentioned prior) would be a good choice for your current situation also. Your website could use an overhaul as a matter of fact and a rebrand could be in order, the logo is great(no offence of course!)

targeted marketing campaigns that are product specific and possibly geared towards retailers to expand your product location always helps(especially if you get new products coming out). Doing something product specific like launching a website geared towards that product with a competition tied to it and a national marketing campaign. Alot of this stuff could be large budget, but this is something that will definitely push you to the next level.

I would want to see more retain product locations or a better web presence to increase online sales.

As a matter of fact.. we were just mauling over video marketing campaigns yesterday and it could work well for you. videos of you(or whomever) making the shoes or experimenting with wierd shoes.. funny bloopers with shoes.. etc. Video marketing is pulling in huge results for marketers right now.

My company could definitely help you out Vaiz Enterprises send me an email chris(at)vaiz.org or a pm if you want to discuss it with me further.

[yourhostingspot.com]

Yeah, I've decided to really focus on releasing a new line for the spring and I've developed a campaign to really push the line and get them into the shops.

I am also currently hiring Commission based reps anywhere and everywhere.

As far as SEO, I completely agree with you. I do have design and coding skills with some SEO skills. Anything that sticks out that I should focus on as far as SEO goes?

Seriously, any suggestions are appreciated. I try and go on the concept that no matter how good you are or how good things are going, you can always learn more and make things better.

So these are my focuses focuses as of this moment:
1) Spring Footwear Line
2) Marketing Campaign
3) SEO
4) Magazine & Press coverage

[Charger]

Yeah, Press coverage would give a hit for sure.

For some reasons, the products/skate shoes page only loads the bckg and texts.

[jsayers]

I'll just stick with my topic of SEO:

As far as on-site optimization goes it looks like only the very basics have been done such as meta tags for keywords and description. In my opinion you need to cut down your keywords to the most important ones and focus your energy on those keywords/phrases. Your keyword density is very low for "skate shoes". Your site has a lot of great pictures: ideal for the visitor but not for search engines. You need a lot of text in addition to your pictures to rank well, specifically with your keywords throughout.

As far as off-page optimization goes, well, I can't see that directly but your ranking on search engines tells me you don't have enough inbound links. Go on a blitz - gather as many relevant links as possible to your website. They need to come from reputable websites, ideally containing content similar to your keywords.

You can also build landing pages - a small website, even just 1 page, focused on a niche, such as one line of shoe that you sell, or a sport that you sell your product to, such as skateboarding. Host that site at it's own address and cross link it with your site.

My last suggestion is that you start a blog on your website. Write, or have someone write, something every week and post it. Dynamic content will also boost your rankings over your static content competitors.

There's all kinds of things you can do to boost your ranking. The larger your website is, while keeping focused on relevant content, and the larger your network (inbound and outbound links), the more dynamic your content, the better you'll rank.

[party-fouls]

congrats, how old are you to have done all this?

[yourhostingspot.com]

Thanks for all the input. I did put more of an emphasis on skate shoes and will work on "skate" as it shows as number 12 in importance.
I've been thinking of redesigning for a while now as style's have changed and I want something more optimized.

What do you guys think about using wordpress for the new website and just designing a template? I haven't used it yet so am unfamiliar with the advantages.

to Party-Fouls:
I'm 23 now, and I started the company in '05.
Thank you for the congrats, but I'm sure we are all the same when I say that I do hold high standards and would like the company to grow alot more. and thanks to the orders that I received from YE'ers over the last few days.