Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, local marketing tips, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
I'm in the process of building an online storefront to sell my t-shirts. Can anyone provide me with some advice on how to effectively promote and draw visitors to my site. I've read a few books on marketing and promoting a website, but I would like some feedback from people who have been successful at it. Especially in our business. Thanks
Strictly from a website promotion standpoint - below are some of the most useful and recommended things that can be done to increase traffic, as well as help target traffic.
Create and submit Sitemaps and a siteindex file -- In addition to being an excellent way to keep Google, Yahoo and MSN up to date on your sites activity, this will also provide access to a variety of stats, diagnostics and tools to help you increase visibility.
Create and selectively submit RSS feeds. These standard xml feeds should include a Sitemap feed as well as targeted topic feeds. One example might be a targeted feed containing links to your "Products" data sheets.
Offer an informative email newsletter. This newsletter can contain items such as; an informative weekly/monthly/quarterly article on a specific relevant topic; detailed information on and links to a featured product or service. Include links and verbiage from your website in this newsletter. Recipients for your newsletter will include:
Anyone who has contacted the website and/or requested additional information
Direct Subscription Requests via a secure (anti-spam) online, double opt-in Subscription form.
** IMPORTANT** This newsletter MUST include active and functional one-click un-subscribe capabilities, and ALL un-subscribes should be automatic, immediate, and strictly honored.
Review, rework and refresh your keywords/phrases. Take an honest look at your targeted keywords/phrase(s). Do they accurately reflect what a real-life searcher would type into a search engine in order to locate products or services such as yours?
Review, rework and refresh your content. Be sure to intersperse targeted keywords and phrases in the content of each page. Optimize content to insure your targeted keyphrase(s) are the first thing a bot sees.
I have a tool online that will show you what a spider sees - but I don't want to violate any posting rules by including the url here since it is on my website. Feel free to contact me if you'd like the url - or - search Google for "What Search Engine Spiders See" and you'll find something similar.
Review, rework and refresh your tags. Go over your site and source code with a fine-toothed comb to insure your site is making optimum use of tags. Be sure ALL your images have relevant and appropriate names and <img alt> tags. All <name> tags should also be appropriate and relevant. Comments within the source code should be limited or non-existent. If comments are necessary, avoid placing them at the beginning of a page or paragraph as much as possible, and avoid using targeted keywords/phrases in the comments themselves.
This is not an all-inclusive list, but it's a good start.
any advice on Web Site Promotion? 
