Proper keyword research is the most important step to marketing your web site within search engines. When optimizing your web site you should always know what keywords people are actually searching for. In bid ranked search engines (Google Ad words, Yahoo/Overture sponsored listings, etc.), we want as many relevant keyword phrases as possible - ideally over 10,000 unique and relevant phrases.

In this article you will learn the benefits of:

• Initial Keyword Brainstorming
• Using the Overture/Yahoo Reverse Search Engine for Keyword extrapolation
• Intermediate Spreadsheet Cleanup & Final Spreadsheet Preparation
• Using Web-Based Tools to Generate an Abundance of Keywords & Relevant Phrases

If you are serious about promoting a website, and you spend an appropriate amount of time doing it, eventually you are going to hit a wall. That wall manifests itself in the feeling that you have done, and are doing everything possible to promote your site. Your rate of traffic growth slowly begins to level off. Where your traffic would increase dramatically every month, maybe 40% more traffic in one month than the month before, now you are getting 10% more traffic this month than last month. You have hit a plateau. You have a few options at this point:

1. You could slow down or give up promoting, and be satisfied with your current level of traffic.
   
2. You could increase your monthly advertising budget, and buy more traffic.
3. You could invent a new unique way to generate traffic to your site.
4. You could use some leverage.

Probably, your real options are buying more traffic, and leverage.

Buying traffic should be a part of any commercial website promotion strategy. Affiliate programs, banner campaigns, newsletter ads, bid-ranked search engines, etc… But like with all things, you cannot be over dependent on purchased traffic. So purchasing more traffic is effective to a point.
Your other option is using leverage. Leverage as it relates to Internet marketing is using traditional promotion techniques and leveraging them off one another to make them more effective.

For example, let's look at how a typical website might use the Usenet as a promotion tool. Typically a website owner, would find newsgroups where she might appropriately (being careful not to spam) advertise her products for sale. She would include her website URL and email address in every post. If things went well, she would get a few unique visitors to her site as a result of her efforts on the Usenet. Pretty straight forward.

However, if she understood the principle of leverage marketing, she wouldn't stop there.... (30 + points to follow)

It's been hailed as one of nature's superfoods. Said to be high in nutritional content, wheatgrass juice, which is made from sprouted wheat berries, is believed to have the ability to cleanse the body, neutralize toxins, slow the aging process and even purportedly prevent cancer. But to the uninitiated taste bud, it can be hard to swallow at first.

Wheatgrass, which is 10 to 14 days of grown grass, is said to be high in chlorophyll, which in chemical composition closely resembles that of hemoglobin, a protein that carries oxygen in the bloodstream.

"Because wheatgrass is a living food, taking one ounce of wheatgrass juice daily is like having a supershot of vegetables," said Kaitlin Moller, founder of Wheatgrasskits.com in Springville.

But getting it down the hatch is another matter because the smell of freshly pulped grass juice can be daunting. "Just hold your nose and take it in one gulp," Moller says.

How it started

The love of wheatgrass runs in Moller's family. She was inspired to start her own company because her mother, KK Fowlkes, started a home-based business, Western Wheatgrass, in Holloday in the early '90s. Fowlkes used to grow wheatgrass and deliver it to local healthfood stores, juice bars and spas in Utah. But she sold the business in 1994 after moving to Israel.

With less than $5,000 in start-up financing, Moller began selling grow-it-yourself wheatgrass kit supplies out of her garage in Mapleton in 2000, making less than $150,000 in her first year of operation. The need for more space for inventory, packaging and an office soon prompted her move to a 1,300-square-foot location in Springville. The business, which hopes to make between $1.3 million and $1.5 million in sales this year, placed fourth in Brigham Young University's student entrepreneurship competition in 2002. Moller is now considering expanding her business to a 6,000-square-foot building in Springville.

Moller attributed her company's strong sales growth to her brother, Parker Garlitz, whose online marketing strategies yielded dividends. "We had experimented with selling the wheatgrass kits through the classifieds in healthfood magazines," she said. "But we couldn't reach the volume of customers we wanted. We also did a direct mail catalog to existing customers. But that didn't do much either."

Marketing strategies

Things changed when Garlitz began marketing the kits on the Internet through Orem-based Web hosting solutions provider iMergent Inc. "Without the Internet, we probably wouldn't even have a business," Moller said. "The cost of magazine advertising was even more than what we made in sales in our first year. But on the Internet, we can reach our target market more easily and faster. And my brother is experienced in that area."

"I started by selling printer supplies through iMergent's Stores Online in 1999," said Garlitz, a business management graduate of BYU. "They taught us marketing strategies like how to do paid-search marketing, or sponsored listings. That means I pay the company whenever someone visits my Web site, wheatgrasskits.com. We usually get 2,000 hits on average per day."

The company is on paid and unpaid listings on Google, E-Bay and Amazon.com, and also advertises through a free monthly online newsletter to its 25,000 subscribers. "We advertise on comparison shopping engines like dealtime.com and frugal.com. We also do live directories, which is a Web site that our site is linked to that allows visitors to browse by topic," Garlitz said.

Not only does marketing online keep overhead costs lower, the Internet also helps get the word out about wheatgrass, Moller said. "Not many people know the health benefits of wheatgrass. And we need to use caution when we make claims about those benefits because the Food and Drug Administration isn't superfriendly to the raw foods industry. We can't make those health claims without going through drug trials. So we cite reports from authors of healthfood books, people who've written about the benefits of wheatgrass, and also add testimonials from our customers," she said.

Future Plans

Today Moller sells more than 150 products, including wheatgrass, barley grass, mushroom and soykits, herb and sprouting kits, juicers, smoothie makers, blenders, wheatgrass and barley seeds, healthfood books, gardening supplies and even live earthworms for composting purposes.

But the company is looking at growing its family of products to include gardening kits that can grow salad greens, herbs, sprouts, and even mushrooms year-round. "For the mushroom kits, we would provide the spores of shitake, maitaki and oyster, the growing substrate, or sawdust, a humidity tent which would provide the right moist climate for growth and growing instructions," Moller said.

"It's completely organic and more fun because you're growing it yourself. We're also expanding into flower garden starter kits, and working on our fourth Web site, flowergardenkits.com."

Internet Kits Inc. doing business as Wheatgrasskits.com

Founded in September 2000

Owners: Kaitlin Moller and brother, Parker Garlitz

Industry: Online retailer of wheatgrass and barley grass kits, herb, soymilk kits, juicers, blenders, composting supplies, and healthfood books

Retail costs: Wheatgrass kit, which costs $29.95, includes a book about wheatgrass, trays, soil, seed, growing instructions, and minerals for the soil. The barleygrass kit retails for $21.95, while the mushroom kits cost between $20 and $30. The soykits cost between $60 and $100.

Location: Corporate headquarters at 64 W. 600 North, Suite 2, Springville.

Start-up costs: Under $5,000

Work Force: Seven employees

Contact: 491-8700

Web sites: wheatgrasskits.com, herbkits.com, soykits.com

We have been working hard on integrating new payment processors such as PayPal (http://www.paypal.com), Optimal Payments (http://optimalpayments.com) and eNETS (http://www.nets.com.sg). Unfortunately we were unable to integrate PayPal Pro because of library conflict issues. However, PayPal and eBay are owned by the same parent company, and we are hopeful that they will soon work out their differences so that we will be able to quickly add PayPal Pro back in.

We want to let you know we are also fixing bugs as fast as we can find them. Thanks to all of those who send us error reports with great descriptions of the problems. Many times we receive error reports that don't have enough information for us to tell which page on which the sender encountered an error. If possible, please include the page you are on and what button was pressed and we will do our best to duplicate the problem and fix it. If you get the same error more than once, don't worry about submitting the error each and every time. Some errors are easier to fix than others, and we try to respond as quickly as possible with an answer. Some bugs are not really bugs as much as they are feature requests or enhancements. Please let us know about these as well. While we may not be able to implement all of them, we do keep them on file. Keep up the good work building great looking sites, and let us know what you think.

StoresOnline Engineering Department.

• Alter content and program site functions and settings using cutting-edge, user-friendly drag and drop features and WYSIWIG simplicity;
• Research the sales potential of any given item via proprietary keyword search tools, develop marketing strategies to optimize their own sites and even research competitors’ strategies, allowing them to pinpoint avenues for optimum success;
• Register a domain within the platform and build the storefront to match the company’s theme and style, also includes ability to set up numerous email aliases;
• Use email to respond automatically with predefined, templated messages;
• Set up and run multiple merchant accounts (with support for major credit card and PayPal transactions);
• Capture and transact customer orders while also monitoring and tracking customer traffic patterns;
• Host forums or develop blogs within a client’s site. This feature benefits the user by contributing toward Google page ranking due to its constantly updated content;
• Import and export product/order data;
• Learn from frequently posted “helps” for promoting Internet businesses in the constantly changing global economy. These are found in the Merchant Services section for StoresOnline clients to use in their own Web strategy;
• Offer multiple products and variations at specific prices to specific customers;
• Get guaranteed, 24/7 help from StoresOnline’s very capable customer service team; and
• Read and follow the carefully designed quick start guide, cheat sheet and numerous online helps complete with screen shots from start to finish.

http://www.vbjusa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=519

Making an impression
Friday, 03 March 2006

Local entrepreneur puts mark on screen printing industry

By Shane Cleveland
VBJ Staff Reporter

Ryan Moor first realized his idea for a screen printing supply company could become a reality during a seminar learning how to run an online business. With some work, he figured the business could produce revenue of $30,000 each month. His company, Ryonet Corp., exceeded that mark in its second month. In 2005, the company’s first full year, Ryonet Corp. produced more than $4 million in revenue.

Ryonet Corp. employee Steve Brown builds custom “exposure units,” which are large wooden cases with fluorescent lighting that will illuminate advertising messages that have been silk screened on the front panel.

Starting from scratch
Moor, 24, first learned how to screen print in a high school class. He used the skills he learned to create t-shirts for the band he played bass guitar in. That led to making shirts for other bands, groups and organizations in the community. When not busy with the band, Moor operated a window washing business, and to earn extra money he sold items, such as t-shirts he made, on eBay.

About four years ago, in need of money, Moor put together screen printing supplies collected from a local retailer and built a wood press to sell on eBay as a screen printing kit. Moor turned a profit and repeated the process. Eventually, his eBay customers began asking how to get more supplies. Not seeing many sources on the internet to refer others to, Moor realized there was an opportunity. After attending a seminar and workshop hosted by StoresOnline, Moor purchased a package and began operating silkscreeningsupplies.com in April 2004.

Moor began operating the business from his home. He tried contacting manufacturers of screen printing supplies, but they didn’t want to work with him because the business was new or they already had dealers in the area.

Instead, Moor worked through Portland supplier Denco Sales, where he was able to arrange some reasonable pricing. The Web site started with 30 to 40 products and some packages, which gradually grew in volume and price. By July 2004, Moor added his first employee.

By early 2005, Ryonet Corp. had grown to the point it could eliminate the middleman and begin working directly with manufacturers. Since that time, the company has grown from about five employees to 19. Additionally, in April 2005 the company moved into an 8,500-square-foot location in Vancouver. The space houses the company’s offices, inventory, shipping and manufacturing operations. The company makes its own line of squeegees and exposure units.

According to Screen Printing magazine editor Tom Frecska, screen printing can be one part of a company’s manufacturing process or the sole purpose of a small business. And though the industry is large, Ryonet Corp. has had success in an arena that Frecska said has become difficult to survive in, particularly as a young start-up.

“A lot of consolidation has taken place in the last decade,” said Frecska.

He said there are not many independent suppliers left, with many manufacturers moving to direct sales or working with large general distributors. And while many suppliers have a Web presence, a majority of the business is being done offline.

Moor said the company’s ability to take advantage of online marketing tools has contributed to the growth it has experienced.

“The internet has been the driving force behind any success that we have had,” Moor said.

Advertising: spend more to make more
Most of the businesses’ advertising is still done on the internet. In the beginning, Moor said he was not taking full advantage of the company’s advertising opportunities.

Moor said each individual visiting the company’s site on a given day spends an average of $3. And Ryonet Corp. was bidding only 10 cents for search engine pay-per-click ads to drive potential customers to the site. Eventually Moor learned the company could spend more on advertising to increase traffic to the site considering the price of the average transaction.

The company is also trying to increase its free, generic listings on the primary search engines Google and Yahoo. While the company’s site is listed highly on Yahoo, Moor said it is difficult to maintain a top generic listing on Google. Ryonet Corp. is currently changing the structure of its Web site to improve its Google placement.

Ryonet Corp. still sells on eBay, with about five percent of the company’s sales coming from the online marketplace.

The company is also working on advanced forms of online advertising “that some people have not touched or may not know about,” said Moor. However, he is playing those cards close to the vest. Moor said being young and new to screen printing allowed him to approach the industry, which is hundreds of years old, differently. But his inexperience also made him naïve, he said, and the company readily shared some information they probably shouldn’t have to others in the industry.

Good business: Bolstering customer’s companies
Moor used to throw packages in his truck to take to UPS and now the shipper sends several trucks to handle the 80 to 100 orders going out each day.

Though Moor realizes the level of growth over the past two years cannot be sustained, the company is taking steps to continue to build its market share, including retaining existing business.

“As long as (our customers) continue to grow their business they will always need more supplies,” he said.
The company operates an 800-square-foot classroom on Highway 99 for existing or potential customers who want to learn more about screen printing and see if it is a viable business option.

Ryonet Corp. also launched a second, complementary Web site, shirtspace.com, offering wholesale printable apparel for silk screening.

The company also expects to grow the business regionally, the old-fashioned way. Ryonet Corp. hired a sales representative three months ago to capture business in Oregon and Washington. Idaho and northern California may follow.

Sales stayed consistent during the traditionally slow months of October through December, and the company started the year off right with its biggest month ever in January.