SEO Costs

[dcox]

Hello everyone,

I would like some suggestions. I have been live for about 9 months or so now and my site isn't making any money. I am not too worried about it because this is something I started between college and my first job, so it is an on-the-side thing that is more of a hobby than a business. However, I am beginning to work on some other projects and my site is taking up time, so it either needs to start making $$, or I need to get rid of it. I do not know if the lack of success is because I am not getting the traffic I need or what. I have checked my prices and they are very competitive with everyone else, so I tend to think I am just not getting the # of visitors I need. I will admit it isn't getting updated nearly as much as it should, so that’s hurting with search engines I think. I think that if I were getting enough orders to make a little $$, I would not be so reluctant to put the time necessary into it. I know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg....

Anyway, what it all boils down to is this:

1. Does "purchased" SEO, such as 3dcarts service work?
2. If so, how much does it really cost to start seeing results?
3. What about paid advertising? The little bit I have done has increased traffic, but not produced enough sales to pay for itself... I am quite possibly advertising in the wrong place, but you can see why I may be nervous about buying a $1500 ad space on a forum with my cheap one isn't generating enough sales to pay for itself.

If those questions have grim answers, I think it is probably time for me to seriously consider shutting it down. That brings me to another question. Should I shut it down and kill the whole thing, or sell it? If sell it, how in the world can I determine a fair value?

I am not in a hurry here, and a good thing about 3dcart is it isn't killing me each month to maintain a $65/month website hobby However, I do want to weigh my options, make a decision, and go with it. I can't stand the stagnant mediocrity where I am at the moment.


Thanks!

DC

[zphaze]

Don't loose hope. I maintain several sites that would get little or no traffic if it were not for SEO tactics. I won't list them here because they are business to business sites.

I will say this much some of the small companies we have had do SEO for us have turned out as good or better results than some high dollar SEO programs we've run. The key is to start small and see what works. I'm no SEO expert but in your case you would do good to start optimizing for some of the products you carry that are not so easy to find. The key is you have to start.

There's an old story of a business owner that refused to advertise, decided to sell his business and the first thing he did to sell his business was advertise it for sale???