what if I don't advertise?

[toshio]

Hi friends, I plan to sell my product on my website (via Yahoo Store). Because my initial inventory is not that high, I don't want to invest too much money on advertising only to potentially lead to a quick sell out and then I'll have to wait for a month to replenish the inventory, leading to a dead loss.

If I make a nice website with all the key words and an appropriate title, can I still expect some traffic even if I don't advertise on Google or Adwords? Or will I get pretty much zero traffic?

If I do advertise, which option would be the best in terms of reward/price ratio? Adwords? Facebook? And please tell me approximately how much each might cost monthly. The product I'm trying to sell is a sex toy, let's say a vibrator.

BTW, is it possible to go to a forum that relates to my product and ask the administrator to send out ads to all the members?

Thanks. A lot of questions, any answer or advice would be appreciated.

[seein]

google your specific product, find blogs/forums that mention it and post your website their.

find the top 10 industry blog about the topic, or forums and start posting your great product website.

[Wayne Liew]

On the Internet, it is more than just Google Adwords for marketing. You can always promote your products and store by implementing some inbound marketing strategies that are most of the time free of charge.

Start writing articles that are related to the niche of your store and submit them all over the Internet. Also, you can interact with communities on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or various forums that might be interested in buying from you.

Create useful content and provide help to them. With that, it will not take too long for someone to visit your store.

Another thing that I would like to add is that while building your store, apart from the design, you should pay attention to search engine optimization elements as well such as the title tags, meta tags and keyword density. You can build links with relevant keywords to your store using article marketing.

[feint]

Paying for Adwords is a proven strategy when it comes to selling online - but yes it does cost money!

There are still plenty of other ways to promote a store online - comment on related blogs,create a Twitter profile for your store, start your own blog, and focus on SEO to drive traffic and sales in the long term.

Have you considered starting a affiliate program?

[katev]

Although You don’t need money to advertise, the difference is that with money the process turn shorter, the other alternatives implies long time and more effort but also work.

[PaintsByPam]

I've found that you really do need to spend some to make some. Free advertising with forums, google, and blogging are great ways to build networking..but I was left we zero time at the end of the day to work on my actual business. I came across Biz Ad Splash.com recently to expose my art website to thousands daily. I'm still trying to figure it out, but I have friends and other forums claiming it is successful and does the advertising for you so you have more time on your hands for the actual business. Let me know your take!

[chicon]

Some good suggestions here. Adwords are generally a short term or very targeted option. Online PR, branding and SEO are recommended for a webstore.

[JackofTrades]

You will potentially get 'some' traffic just by having a good website, but if your business is not a super targeted niche market, you will have a lot of people vying for customers in the same space. Spending some money on advertising on google (or whichever search engine you prefer... but remember Google is the most used search engine) and getting possibly one of the top 3 spots will help you get more customer attention. If your site is VERY relevant and good, Google will acknowledge that and the price you pay for each click will be lower than other advertisers (hopefully) so you can bid more! Hope this helped!

[alisha44]

There are two ways in the internet world. Either advertise or start huge link building. First one need money and second one need time. So if you are not ready to pay the money than you will have to invest the time.

[Dannybranded]

Lets no forget normal advertising. Advertising around the area you live in will help drive traffic. Google: Guerilla Marketing. Guerilla Marketing in most cases is used to start a buzz. Alot of small business owners love it because the budgett is set by your imagination.

[discountedclothing]

Start researching on your targeted keywords but if you don't advertise, you have a lesser chance of exposing your products to the market.

[acousticgroupie]

I say don't focus all your energy on advertising--build up your marketing and PR, which is VERY different

[anson7up]

One thing I always believe in, "Idea Spread Wins"
Spread your ideas to people who are already interested. Let them to the promotion for you. Words to mouth is a lot more efficient than mass-ad.

www (dot) Idirt (dot) net

[thunderbox]

as anson7up said, building up a consumer base with positive reviews and word of mouth will be much more effective in leading to conversions than Adwords campaign. However it does take time and effort to build up revenue flow without some form of direct marketing, so if you have a lot of free time SEO is the way to go. It will also save you money but just make sure that you set yourself time frames to do it in. I have made the mistake of spending way too much time on SEO than working on the business.

[dfveteran]

If you want to do business online, you need to start an advertising and marketing campaign aimed at long term results. Adwords is fine, but you won't get results that last. You have to plant a seed that keeps growing. You not only get have to put word out about your business but you need to create backlinks. Backlinks are so important when it comes to long term results.

You have to spend about 1-3 hours a day advertising your website for the first three months or so. After three months time you’ll probably only have to spend about 1 hour a day to advertise. As long as you want steady traffic to always come to your website, you must spend time everyday getting word out about your website.

It won’t come easy, but the time you spend on telling everyone about your website will be rewarded. You can even use techniques I am about to tell you; to make word spread online like wild fire! Remember; don’t use just one of these techniques. Use them all and you will be happy you did.

Just set up a schedule so you can do 2 or three techniques one day (or as many as it takes to do in about 2-3 hours). Then the next day, move down the list until you reach the bottom. Then start over again and keep advertising like that. Within three months you will get a huge boost in traffic. Keep going and you will double-triple your traffic every month. You can create thousands of sales for yourself.

One of the most increasingly effective ways to increase traffic is to tell friends and family you have around the internet. Have them tell their friends, and so-on and so-on. One of the best ways to spread word around like this is by using social networks. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Digg, DropJack, Technorati, and Delicious are just a few great ones. Do a search on Google on social networks and you will find tons. If you get good at making lots of friends you can drive millions of visitors to your website everyday with social networks. Friends equal trust and trust equals sales!

Leave a signature of your website on the bottom of all your emails. Get some business cards made up. Lots of businesses and restaurants will let you leave your business card up to advertise. Change everything you do online in how you take free advertising chances for granted. If you are given the opportunity to advertise your website for free, take it.

Sign up for forums and newsgroups related to the content of your website/business. Use the space they provide you for a signature. List your website and whatever else you want to advertise in your signature. Most forums will let you advertise in your signature. Since the forums and newgroups will be related to your website material, you will probably know everything about what the people there are talking about. Show your expertise and act professional in all your posts and comments. This alone works great to bring in customers.

Writing articles and submitting them to major article websites is probably the most effective way to bring in traffic. Writing articles about your website can bring in thousands or millions of visitors within a few short months. Millions of people looking to read interesting articles in their spare time visit article websites. Some people share your articles if they are good enough. Then your articles can spread like wildfire through the internet. You’ll have to submit 1-4 articles a day, everyday, until you reach the desired amount of traffic. I pace myself to submit 2-4 articles a day.

Leave comments on high ranking blogs and leave your website address in your details. This will create backlinks to your website. Backlinks on high ranking websites will move your website up in search engines.

Create a blog about your website/business. Create a sub domain of your website to make more traffic get there. For instance www.yourwebsite.com/blog, the subdomain is /blog. Tell everyone what you have to offer that is original. Let the world know what your website offers. Make sure you blog 5-6 times a week and you will drive traffic. Blogs create traffic because they are usually updated regularly and that attracts search engines to your website. Search engines don’t find old content first. If you want to rank high in search engines, you better update your website regularly. Attaching a blog to a sub domain of your website is a great way to start.

Make sure you submit a sitemap to major search engines. A sitemap is great for websites that are updated regularly. It submits information on when it was last updated how often it changes, and how important it is in relation to other URLs in the site. These are some of the best qualities you can show a search engine. Having a sitemap and updating it to major search engines regularly can give you a huge boost of traffic in a very short time.

Submit your website to as many website directories as possible. Most website directories will let you submit your website for free. This can be a great way to bring in traffic but can take time to see results. Try and set up the keywords on your website. Put as many keywords as you can that relate to what your product is about. This way search engines will find content related to your business/product. This can be very effective if you get good at it.

Use Google adwords and bid on others so you can be seen on the first page all the time. Google adwords is a great way to bring traffic. You bid a small price ($0.10-$0.50 on average) on key words that would be used to find your website in a search engine. The small price you bid is paid for each visitor they send your way. You might pay a few dollars, but for the visitors you get in return will more than make up for it in sales. Use Google adsense in combination to receive commission on sales and clicks.

Use key words in your website meta tags. You should use all the keywords that talk about that page in your website. Try and set up your meta tags on each page on your website. For example if you sell power tools, you want your meta tags to use keywords that would relate to power tools.

These are just a few ways to advertise and market your website. Use them all and you will sure to be ready to retire on your website profits. Any average Joe can use these techniques. You will see your website visitors go from 1-10 a day to thousands each day.