How An Inventor Used an Ecommerce Shopping Cart To Sell Products Worldwide!

We do a lot of clothing lines.

We do lines of jewelry too.

To be successful as an online store, it's best to be in a niche market. Google is the engine that drives the Internet. To have a successful store, you need a successful brand. A successful brand - on the Internet - means to be in one of their searches. Without that, you'll have a tough time getting sufficient traffic.

On the Internet, placement in Google searches rules. Without it, you don't have much. The good side of the equation is that you have full control over what domain name to use.

It's no secret that Google places heavy emphasis on the domain name. There is a reason that the keyword is bolded within the domain name. The owner of the domain name, couple with a good site, practically guarantees traffic. You position your store with your domain name. Then you leverage that placement with long-tail keywords of your individual products.

You're not going to find this type of leadership from other ecommerce shopping carts. Yes, they're technically brilliant. But so what if you don't get the products. If you don't brand your domain name you probably won't get the traffic. You may get lucky and have a high-traffic site, but if you do, it's more than likely it's due to the domain name.

So your first step in opening a store is to select your domain name. Don't think it's easy. It requires a process to do it properly. Here it is:

1. Decide what you think people would search on to find what you sell.

2. Go to Google's Keyword Selector Tool (you'll have to Google it. They don't allow links to it) and enter that search term.

3. See how many searches are being done for that specific term.

4. If your search term has less than 2,000 searches a month, I might look for a new term. If it's zero searches per month, definitely don't use it.

5. Looking at the related search terms, look for terms that explain exactly what you sell and have 5,000 or more searches per month.

6. Flip up Go Daddy. Begin doing searches on the domain name. If it comes back as a premium domain name (that means a broker owns it) don't be afraid to buy it. The associated search volume justifies the price. The search volume will only go up so you are really buying influence on the Web. You're only paying once, but you're buying influence from now on.

7. In your search for a domain name, here are the ruels:

a. Dot com, dot net, and dot org extensions are best, in that order.

b. Other extensions do not seem to work as well

c. Always check the associated search traffic before buying a domain name, even for just $10. If it sounds cool but has no traffic, it's a loser. If it's popular at all, it would be getting searches.

d. Dashes in domain names can work but it takes a great site to overcome the deficit.

e. Strive for that niche domain name. Length doesn't matter because people don't type things in when they search. They click. The key thing is do they search on it or not.

f. Check all variations and all search terms. This is the most important decision you will make.

A brand on in Internet means searches. Period. No searches, no brand. So in Internet marketing you get the domain name first, then you build your campaign. You don't decide on the product or store name without getting the domain name first, preferably the dot com version.

Once you've purchased the domain name, then develop the visuals. We do this as a service too. It may be worth your while to let us develop your presence. That way you can just concentrate on running the store.