Why is nobody buying from my site? Adwords + more Issues

Hi

I hope you guys can help. I have a few issues so I hope I have posted in the right section.

My website: www_deviltronics_com

I have finally got the website running and got a load of stock in for it (£10,000 to be exact).

Yesterday and today I have been setting up google adwords as I thought this is the best way to get traffic to it as it is absolutely rubbish in the natural search engines.

I have set up quite a few keywords up in adwords, for example a main one 'Gadgets'. I have put the CPC up quite high so its in the top three. I have had about 100 clicks to the site but nobody has bought anything, not even added anything to the cart. (i have a tracker to want everyone does on the back end of the site).

I have added quite a few adwords and keywords so I can experiment with them. But most are not extortionate like the 'gadget' keyword.

The cost of adwords in a day and half is quite high, £100 without a sale. Is my website rubbish and putting people off?

I would also like to know why the cpc is sometimes lower than that for what is set. For example something set at 30p per click is actually being charged 20p per click. Why does adwords do this.

I have also made a list of 200 UK shopping directories for which I will be submitting my site to tomorrow, some may be paid for others may not. Apart from this what else can I do for the natural search engines, I haven't really got the time for link exchanges etc.

I also had an agent of lycos on the phone today. I have purchased some space on their site. Basically when you do a search through lycos a banner will appear right at the top, if it is related to the word 'gadgets'. So if somebody types in the search 'gadgets' my banner will appear. If somebody types in 'USB gadgets' my banner will still appear at the top as long as somebody hasn't purchased that keyword and so on. Banner size (which they will design to my liking) will be around 400 x 40. This has cost me a small fortune, have I done the right thing??

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Feel free to look at the site and let me know what you think.

(sorry for the essay!)

Mate... when someone types in 'Gadgets' what are they looking for?

You can bet that 99% of the time you ain't got what they want.

Get very specific in targeting because you have to get the right people to your domain looking for exactly what you have.

thanks for the reply, i am working on keywords for each individual product and some have already been put in place. The reason i have used 'gadgets' is because all my competitors are using it (maybe a bad thing) and they are selling the same things.

...and how successful are that at attracting sales for it?

The "smart move" is running ads that "make sales" so you have the extra disposable revenue to use on keyword experiments.

A radio controlled plane is a remote control airplane (among other names) and a missile launcher is a missile launcher...

I found in the gift basket segment that everyone wants ranks for "gift baskets" but after having #1 -#5 positions locked and 7,000 visits per day and no sales suggests searchers don't want just any old gift basket - they search that way to get better ideas for what they want and then re-search under a different phrase.

The thing to keep in mind with Pay Per Click campaigns is that you aren't trying to buy traffic - you are trying to buy sales. Put yourself in a consumer's mindset and think of what you would search for if you were out there trying to buy the product you are selling. Don't buy the keyword "gadget" just because your competitors are. Heck, you may be paying for your competitors to check out your site 10 times a day for all that you know. Go with keywords based on what you sell, and what potential customers would do. Also, in the early stages it is better to diversify your keywords. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket, so to speak, and blow your ad budget without learning anything about visitor tendencies. If you drop in several different keyword combinations, and it still doesn't take off as you hope, at least you likely learn something about the keywords and possibly your site. You also need to take the actual site into consideration. And I apologize as I haven't had the time to go to your site to tell you if it is rubbish and the reason you aren't getting any sales or not, but I doubt that is the case.

PPC is a waste of money if you are using general keywords within your ads. Be specific as to brand, model, features, etc. If you get no clicks... maybe the market is small. If you do get clicks on specificity... the odds of converting are much higher... dependent upon your terms of sale. I wish you luck.

Deviltronics,

I would have to agree with most that PPC can be expensive, but I learned something a few years ago with reference to my own site. Adding in an easy word in addition to the keywords you are plugging really makes a difference, and that word is "sale". As an example I browsed your site homepage and used your first keyword, "gadget". It is searched 56,705 times a month, but there is no way to know if those searchers are qualified buyers. However "gadgets for sale" is searched 65 times a month and those searchers by definition are buying...and thats the keyword selection that you pay for. If you do a quick search using whichever search engine you use, you will see by doing a search using those terms yourself, that the top ten are completely different. I'm not saying this is a "rule" but at least you will bring in more "qualified buyers". I also use a number of other tools that allows me to track competitors keywords and there PPC campaigns, so I do have a little bit of an edge. Another good tip I have for you is use the google sitemap program, it will allow you to check how people are finding your site and you can tailor your PPC campaign more to that. I noticed that you already have a healthy following on eBay so that should already be directing buying traffic to your site, and you may want to consider integrating some of your eBay listings into your site. They offer an editor kit that allows you to do so. Once you figure out the best search terms to use in PPC, visit my site, I integrated a tool into it that will compile a report and tell you how to improve your "generic" search engine rankings against your competitors. Good luck with your new site.