Name of your website?BuyBigTires.com
Your name?
Kurt Hartman
Your Location (city, etc)
Clayton
When did you start your website and why?
Our website came into existence in September of last year.
We are in a niche industry(we sell OTR Tires) and it is a worldwide industry. A simple brick and mortar operation was not going to help us reach our customer, so a website coupled with an PPC campaign was an obvious choice.
Please give us a short summary of your website, business model, etc
Our website seeks to market off-the-road(OTR) tires in an international fashion. There is a shortage of available tires in our industry, and the website is used to collect contacts, and also to source new supply.
We have a physical location to store our tires in, and an office staff to handle order fulfillment, billing, and the like.
In the beginning, our orders were something like 5% of our total gross income, now they approach 30-40% a month, including repeat business from clients on the website.
The investment has definitely paid off.
What has been the most difficult part of creating and running your website?
Figuring out ways to add valuable content to our site. In a niche industry, you are beginning with very specific content, and so it is harder to dig down much deeper than you already are.
We have found ways to do this by adding a blog, and are working on a technical information database to add value.
What has been the easist part of operating your website?
Managing our PPC campaign. From day one, it has brought rewards and customers in automatically.
What was your biggest mistake?
My first design of the site was completely in Flash. We were of no use to any search engines until I redesigned it five months in.
We were considered invisible by every search engine imaginable, until I finally had to learn CSS from scratch.
Who maintains your website and why?
I do. Mainly from a cost and understanding perspective. While you can get someone who is better at web design than I am, nobody cares as much about the content and the user as someone who is interacting with them on a daily basis.
Tell us how your business has benefitted from your website?
We have faster and more specific information about our customers, their needs, and offers than we would otherwise.
Our website has taken us from relative obscurity, to competing with the leaders in our industry.
What are your views on ecommerce and the future of the internet?
I see more and more people becoming comfortable with the use of the internet as a vehicle for commerce. Information has been monetized, and given away more freely than at any time in the history of the world.
I think the personalization of search will eventually go too far, and that there may be a large backlash as a result.
The internet will soon be entirely wireless and/or wired internet connections will be outrageously fast.
What are your views on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Anybody who isn't on the front page of Google for their key category is going to whine about SEO. The truth is, while it's not bad, what a search engine wants to see is anyone's guess.
Unless you wrote the algorithm, SEO is still somewhat of a mystery.
What are your views on Search Engines? Have they helped or hindered your website?
They have helped, through PPC, and we're starting to see more and more organic traffic every day. I don't know how they could possibly hinder anyone's website.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
A PPC campaign. The most bang for the buck period. I know some companies pay as much as 15-$20 a click for very high search volume keywords. A niche market brings much better returns for far less cost-per-click.
What method has been least successful for promoting your website?
Link Farms. They've pretty much been blasted out of every search engine's algorithm.
What would you like to see change with respect to the internet?
I would like to see some of the Web 2.0 sites differentiate themselves in terms of features, and do away with others. I would like to see MySpace disappear, and for someone to find a word to use besides "blogosphere".
Which e-commerce site has the most unique business model?
I would have to threadless.com. It incorporates the spirit of web 2.0(User generated action and content) and e-commerce. By supporting the artists(who submit and get a portion of the proceeds for each design) and the customer(who gets a unique, limited edition piece of art) they make a handy profit.
What is your website address?
BuyBigTires.com
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