Green Computers - Still haven't sold anything!

I've had about 2,200 visitors since I started doing search marketing. Still no sales.

A few ideas I had about potential problems:
1) I'm not advertising enough
2) There is no demand for my product
3) I don't sell laptops and other computers people truly want
4) I don't sell myself well enough on the website
5) No one trusts my company
6) The computer needs to look cooler, and "Green." Customers need to see the Green value in the product by how it looks.


I had considered going into the business market, because as you stated there are big net savings for businesses who use my computer. All my support and manufacturing companies are outsourced, so even if I were to go out of business, those companies still hold up the support contracts, so it's a safe purchase in that regard.

But I literally still haven't made a single sale. I've had over 2,200 visitors, I've got online ads running, I'm thinking about advertising on Treehugger or ecogeek, and in the Portland, OR online newspaper but I'm concerned, because if 2,200 didn't want to buy this product for some reason then I still have a serious issue to figure out before I spend big on advertising (I think, right?)

I'm also called all colleges with green initiatives to try and get my products listed in their stores with student discounts, problem is they almost all have contracts w/ Dell and Apple so they are loath to add another.


Suggestions would be appreciated. I'm stumped.

What are your prices in comparison of someone else who sells the same product. Your visitors could be price shopping and then going to someone who is cheaper. You might want to run a contest where someone can win a computer but make them write a review that you can publish on your site. This can get your name out and a good reputation for quality products should continue your sales.

just an idea

There are some good books out there about increasing conversion. EGOL has named some of the best in past posts, i suggest finding them. I believe one of them was titled "Landing Page Optimization" - so a search for that should give you the right page.

I think you are asking the right questions....

1) Read Tim Ash's book... Landing Page Optimization

2) If you are using broad match run analytics to see what terms bring traffic

3) Use negative Keywords running to block unwanted visitors

4) 2200 visitors? Did that include robots? Is that how many you paid for?

5) the buying cycle for this product might be a rather long one

Where are those people coming from?
How many are bots?
What is your bounce rate?
What is your target customer and why? How do you expect them to search for these products?
As EGOL said... what is the buying cycle?

While you are marketing a particular type of computer you should be able to get a lot of information about general computer sales as they are such a popular item.

You haven't said anything that allows anyone to make educated guesses.

2200 visitors... how many got to the buy page? if lots... they don't like you payment processor.

If they come in on the homepage and bounce back to "where ever" they don't like you (your trust/credibility)

If they make to the product pages but don't on beyond - they are probably window shoppers and comparing deals and yours isn't great.

...there likely isn't a single reason... a collection of reason is more likely.

Thanks for the book advice, and I will also implement negative keywords. Any other reading recommendations?



Right now all my traffic is from search ads

Since I started tracking I've got:

949 from direct
336 from google
170 yahoo

and anywhere from 50-20 from Facebook ads, Myspace ads, organic, or other places.

I didn't have my own IP excluded for a while, but still I'm not sure where all the direct traffic came from

Bounce rate is 5.5%

My actual purchase page has 192 unique pageviews


if you've got time the site is myleef (.) com

ps. not totally clear on what a buying cycle is but I'm looking it up

I looked at the site, I found it difficult to figure out where your products were and then I saw you had only one product.

I really think you need to invest in some usability testing and also think about your target audiences. Direct sales may be a better way to go than e-commerce. It looks like your product is an excellent candidate for bulk business purchases, but at the same price (or more) as a traditional desktop you aren't going to get many people who are comparison shopping. I think that only people specifically looking for green computers will buy.

Create a very tight adwords campaign, use a lot of negatives and make it clear in your ads what your product is aimed at.

Check out that book landing page optimization by Ash but I suggest you start with the other book Egol recommended, "don't make me think" by Steve Krug. The Krug title is a much more layman's approach to usability while landing page optimization is a very technical book.

Some of the direct traffic could be people bookmarking you and coming back later.

I agree with Googler. You definitely need some usability work and better landing pages. The important info is hard to locate and I am not sure it goes far enough for people to lean towards your machine over a better known brand selling a 'green' PC even if they are not AS green.

I thought it was really simple and straight forward site, but I think you may be right. People expect all e-commerce stores to function a certain way so it may not be clear I'm selling only one type of desktop PC.

Also, heres some of my analytics data:
myleef(dotcom)/images/analytics.gif

I sell green products as well, and I will tell you your conversion rates will be lower than normal, you will have a harder time selling and you will have a better time selling to businesses.

In the US, we still live in a Walmart nation. Meaning that it is more important to most people to save money up front, than over the long term. It's a tough road.

So you need better pricing to sell to the public. We just replaced our office computer for $409. It's a 2.8 duel with 6gigs of ram. So thats a better computer for about the $200 less I'm saving using your computer. People want to see a ligit payback, and they want it fairly quick.

Also, you need more contact info on your site. People want to know where they can actually go and smack you around if you screw up


With that said, I do like what you are doing. If it were me, I would focus on businesses because they are running thier computers 8-9 hours a day. They will realize the payback quicker than a home owner who has thier computer on 2 hours per day.

Now that the nutcracker has decided to force Americans to "go green" with his insane requirements I would use this to your advantage as a green product salesperson. Use the requirements of Obama to make sales. For instance advertise the fact that your products comply with government demands.

[off topic] what we really need are more laws to protect the environment... our economy is going down the tubes, our constitution is being ripped apart and we are (pretending) to save the environment... its all a game.

You would do better with developing an icon character to play fun/make fun at the competitive norm.

Think of the Geico gecko - no one like to buy insurance but that gecko makes it alot easier to choose Geico... I would also think "green PCs" aren't that important to people "UNLESS" you can get under their skin about home energy & NIMBY issues (Not in my Back Yard stuff)... make the topic "PERSONAL".

I like it!

also. focus on where the electricity rates are the highest. We ship a lot of stuff to California, about half actually. But they have the highest electricity rates, so they get the quickest payback. I know that since we have a good data pool showing this, we are working on better ways to target California!