Keywords and SEO - make it more effective

Keywords and SEO - vital to t-shirt companies I think - especially if you are hoping to sell online, you need to get people to your site...one top tip is to check out and do what Tim at Assault Blog says - I learned a heap from reading is blogs...I'll try outline some things I have done and found useful...

One way to give you keywords more weight for targeted customers is to add you ad to the google locals directory/google maps, then when people search for "keyword in Location X" you'll be up near the top in the map listings..this also helps pull your site to the top of the listings in the top 10..

With keywords you should have them in your:
- title [title] [/title] *change the ['s to <'s
- header [h1][/h1] tags on each page
- in the text you write start it with the keyword if possible
- in the text you write use [strong][/strong] tags around your keyword
- when linking to your page externally have your keywords in the [a href = "www.yoursite.com" alt = "lovely keywords" title = "lovely keywords"]lovely keywords[/a] *change the ['s to <'s
- the effectiveness of keywords is dependent to a degree on the number of "votes" (links) it gets from other sites to your site..the higher PR (google page rank) of the page linking to your site using your keywords in the a href the stronger the vote for those keywords to your page the more effective or higher ranking your page will be...

When using keywords there are two sides to it, onsite and offsite..the onsite is what you have in the text of your page and the html you use (w3c verified pages, with clean, spider friendly html help your onsite keywords no end)..the offsite is links back to your page using your keywords...you can get these from directories, blogs about you, blogs you write yourself..the top tip here would be to write a blog with links to your site and then submit this blog to social bookmarking sites, digg.com, mixx.com, stumbleupon etc which would then multiply the number of links using your chosen keywords back to your site strengthening them...

........or at least thats a synopsis of what I have read..I don't know if it is fool proof, I doubt it but for some of my keywords it has worked...for my google anyway..actually, if anyone can try google "quirky ladies t-shirts" or "ladies t-shirts" from the entire world, not locally, I'd be curious to see if I feature..would really appreciate it..

Anyway, good luck with keywords and SEO - its an endless pit of research and work but interesting none the less..any other top tips you have please leave a comment and let me know - would love to hear from you...knowledge is no burden..

SWOT Analysis for a t-shirt company

In this blog I'll deal with SWOT Analysis (Stengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for a t-shirt company...These are things that I have thought about whilst getting LadyUmbrella womens fashion tees up and running.

I'll start by saying focus on what you can do not what others are doing...by all means, monitor your competitors (once you establish them) and do some good old SWOT analysis...

Strengths - what does/will your company have that your competition won't be able to do, or how will you be different/better than them..focus on this element and make sure that when marketing yourself you make your key strength clear from the get go..

Weakness - how is your competitor than you? in what way? I think its fair to assume that initially the main advantage that all your competitors will have is brand recognition (to a certain degree at least depending on how successful they are). How can you improve on your weakness? before launching get the word out, work, hustle (Gary V style), post, comment, blog, social media yourself to the brink of death so that when launch day comes at least some people will know about it..reducing your weakness...the other key thing competitors will have will be trust from customers that the product/service is reliable so from day one ensure you have everything in place to ensure timely delivery of quality goods so that you can quickly earn customer trust...happy customers talk nicely about you and get you more customers - unhappy customers shout angrily about you and end your business..

Opportunity - what has your competitor overlooked? What area of your niche or market have they not successfully reached out to? how can you reach out to them? what is your USP (unique selling point) that will give you the opportunity that your competitor doesn't have..this may not be an actual tangible betterment of any good or service that your competitor provides but market it differently, bundle it nicely, present cleverly..

Threat - what is your achilles heal? where can it all go wrong? what other company or competitor can compete in your niche? thing of worst case scenarios and how you will be able to turn them into positives or bounce back..always have a reliable plan B..or C..that could be if trying to sell online and it just doesn't work out yet you have a load of stock do some research on potential retail outlets that may stock your tees (or whatever)..figure out how to approach them and start working on associated materials to give to them upon meeting them...and, if plan A (selling online) does happen to take off there is no harm in getting another revenue stream going too..

I've been setting up my brand for the last 3 months or so now and these are things I've thought about and worked on...I can't say it will guarantee anything (I don't even know myself as we are still to launch) but at least you'll give yourself the best opportunity to succeed and be satisfied that, even if it all does go wrong, that you did all you could and weren't half hearted and so will have no doubts or regrets...or thats my hope anyway...

P.S. I'm not a business head at all so my above SWOT could be complete garbage, willing to stand corrected and learn if that is the case...

Hi...I'm Rob, a t-shirt nut...

This is just a short introduction post to say hi to whoever may read this (although I'll probably be my most frequent reader) and let you know what this blog aims to be about..

I'm currently starting a t-shirt company making LadyUmbrella womens fashion tees and are due to launch in late November or early December. Over the last few months I have become a recluse and done nothing but research all I can about the t-shirt world. This blog will chronicle the things I have learned and hopefully will become a useful resource for some other budding t-shirt designers...

And, I'll leave it at that...you can find out more about LadyUmbrella quirky ladies tees at our site or else on my other blog about LadyUmbrella t-shirts..If that doesn't exhaust you you can also have a look at the LadyUmbrella Facebook fanpage and by all means feel free to become a fan...

Laters...

Give people the "scent" for better sales conversions..

Giving people the "scent"...

The "scent" is something that I hadn't heard about before but as part of my nightly googling for online marketing/sales/etc I came across the following:

Bryan Eisenberg on Using Trigger Words to Boost Landing Page Conversion

(note: at the end the guy does a bit of promo for himself, I don't know him at all but the video is good - I highly recommend it)

Basically, the scent is when someone finds your page via a google search/ad you want to instantly make them feel that they have arrived at a place they want to be..what the video suggest and what I think is a great idea, is to have tailored landing pages...for example if some one searches for "t-shirts in new york" and comes to your page have a title of "You've come to the right place for T-Shirts in New York" - straight away you are letting the potential customer know that they are at a site they want to be on and creating a link between what they searched for and now what they have found - doing this dramatically increases conversions...to 72% I think...

Now, once you have given the scent to the customer that they are on the right page you want to anticipate their next question and answer..again, following on from the New York t-shirt example your landing page could contain "So, now you've found us would you like to buy one of our t-shirts [and have pictures with buy now links] or just cruise around our site...either way, have a good time"..

By doing this straight away the person who has searched for you, has been welcomed, given the "scent" and called to action to do something that is relevant to what they searched for and has a much better chance of increasing sales...

I know a lot of people have their t-shirts on display on their homepage and may say "whats the point?" but I think if you have a tailored landing page to what people search for then you will have a better chance of conversion...any ads I run with keywords will all have tailored landing pages anyway...generally, homepages are more about who you are or what your company does (whilst also, in most cases, containing pictures of t-shirts and buy now links) and not about reaffirming a searchers belief that they have found something that they have looked for...

Anyway, thats my summary, no substitute for watching the video but hopefully some will find it useful...