Expired domain strategy for E-commerce sites

[PlusMein]

Looking for suggestions people.

I have a small e-commerce site selling consumer electronics (3-4 products). Revenue in the best month was around $700k (market peak) but it has settled down to around $160k per month.

Net profit margins are around 30% after all is said and done, VAT (sales tax), fulfillment, product costs, ads, 1 staff member for CS and other incidentals.

View attachment 224402

I kick myself a little bit because I think I have approached the opportunity all wrong and left a lot of money on the table.

I built out a site on WP/Woocommerce and tried to use blog posts to drive traffic to those posts which then lead to the product page.

Fresh domain, DR6 now after a little bit of link building. Homepage is starting to rank for some good KW's but we're talking small traffic numbers - ALL OF MY SALES COME FROM GOOGLE ADS.

If I could do this all over, I would buy a powerful expired domain and build out a standard format e-commerce store, with category pages being the target for my SEO efforts.

I don't think I wouldn't even add a blog to the site. Google doesn't seem to care about blog posts in my niche - the SERPs are all category pages for e-commerce stores.

Very important lesson for me as a novice SEO - you can do as much KW research as you want BUT YOU NEED TO LOOK AT THE SERPs - what is Google ranking?

Anyway - I'm thinking of purchasing a powerful domain to do what I think I should have done first time around. The current site will keep going too.

There is a particular keyword I want to chase with high commercial intent, rated as Medium (16) difficulty on Ahrefs, and the SERP is category pages for e-commerce stores with DR of 50-70, so I'm going to need some power.

I'm happy to be VERY aggressive with this new site because I will have the safety net of the original site.

Does anyone have any advice for me? I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who has gone through the process of ranking an ecom site in a competitive niche.

Hello,
Souds good for small business model. I would like to ask you how did you reach such numbers with what kind of marketing channel I mean - Google Ads, Email, Amazon or what?
As Iunderstand you need some SEO advcies but in most cases it depends on the website and in order to gives some advcies important have a look on the wbsite first. As because it depends o nso many factors that you even can`t imagine. Age of the domain, on-page seo strategry, EAT, history of the domain, competition in the niche directly, off-page seo strategry and many other factors, etc.

 

[Henny10]

Hello,
Souds good for small business model. I would like to ask you how did you reach such numbers with what kind of marketing channel I mean - Google Ads, Email, Amazon or what?
As Iunderstand you need some SEO advcies but in most cases it depends on the website and in order to gives some advcies important have a look on the wbsite first. As because it depends o nso many factors that you even can`t imagine. Age of the domain, on-page seo strategry, EAT, history of the domain, competition in the niche directly, off-page seo strategry and many other factors, etc.

Thanks for the message. I think I’ve covered off your questions in previous posts. And in relation to advice it was specifically expired domains, not general SEO advice.

 

[PlusMein]

Thanks for the message. I think I’ve covered off your questions in previous posts. And in relation to advice it was specifically expired domains, not general SEO advice.

what you would like to know about the expired domains, just ask me? ))

 

[Henny10]

what you would like to know about the expired domains, just ask me? ))

If you’d like to respond to the OP that would be great

 

[Henny10]

respond

You have sent me a PM asking me to ask you a question. I don’t have any specific questions to ask you, but if you would like to contribute some knowledge/experience you have with expired domains onto this thread then please do

 

[PlusMein]

You have sent me a PM asking me to ask you a question. I don’t have any specific questions to ask you, but if you would like to contribute some knowledge/experience you have with expired domains onto this thread then please do

nice) I guess you asked not me. I would like to help but if you have some question.

 

[Henny10]

nice) I guess you asked not me. I would like to help but if you have some question.

At risk of repeating myself, I don’t have any specific questions to ask you, but if you have any experience in expired domains that you would like to share, please do.

Would you please refrain from sending me any further PM’s

 

[PlusMein]

I have a big experience in SEO and worked and wordking with many big USA and European websites. As well E-commerce. And have as well experiene in experied domains. But as I told I don`t consider it necessary to post any exact information here if you do not have specific questions on this topic. As becuase all those topics realted to the expired domains and OFF-Page SEO are huge and I can writing here to long all my experience))

 

[Henny10]

I have a big experience in SEO and worked and wordking with many big USA and European websites. As well E-commerce. And have as well experiene in experied domains. But as I told I don`t consider it necessary to post any exact information here if you do not have specific questions on this topic. As becuase all those topics realted to the expired domains and OFF-Page SEO are huge and I can writing here to long all my experience))

Ok, so don’t respond to the thread then. No-one is forcing you

 

[Titus Lotuss]

You should write a case study on your project.

would be an interesting read.

 

[AnotherSmm]

Looking for suggestions people.

I have a small e-commerce site selling consumer electronics (3-4 products). Revenue in the best month was around $700k (market peak) but it has settled down to around $160k per month.

Net profit margins are around 30% after all is said and done, VAT (sales tax), fulfillment, product costs, ads, 1 staff member for CS and other incidentals.

View attachment 224402

I kick myself a little bit because I think I have approached the opportunity all wrong and left a lot of money on the table.

I built out a site on WP/Woocommerce and tried to use blog posts to drive traffic to those posts which then lead to the product page.

Fresh domain, DR6 now after a little bit of link building. Homepage is starting to rank for some good KW's but we're talking small traffic numbers - ALL OF MY SALES COME FROM GOOGLE ADS.

If I could do this all over, I would buy a powerful expired domain and build out a standard format e-commerce store, with category pages being the target for my SEO efforts.

I don't think I wouldn't even add a blog to the site. Google doesn't seem to care about blog posts in my niche - the SERPs are all category pages for e-commerce stores.

Very important lesson for me as a novice SEO - you can do as much KW research as you want BUT YOU NEED TO LOOK AT THE SERPs - what is Google ranking?

Anyway - I'm thinking of purchasing a powerful domain to do what I think I should have done first time around. The current site will keep going too.

There is a particular keyword I want to chase with high commercial intent, rated as Medium (16) difficulty on Ahrefs, and the SERP is category pages for e-commerce stores with DR of 50-70, so I'm going to need some power.

I'm happy to be VERY aggressive with this new site because I will have the safety net of the original site.

Does anyone have any advice for me? I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who has gone through the process of ranking an ecom site in a competitive niche.

The earnings are really good in itself. Good luck mate.

 

[J1218]

Thanks very much for taking the time to lay out the detail in this post - this was the kind of info I was hoping for when I started the thread

The second option you mentioned is along the lines I was thinking of but up until now I haven’t had a potential strategy for it out in front of me (thanks for that)

I especially like the thought of potentially being able to gain more than 1 position on the first page results for the main commercial keywords.

I would also be able to be much more aggressive in terms of link building on the new site as the risk is pretty much ring-fenced to the new site

Also I’m starting to gain some low 1st page rankings with the original site which doesn’t have any real power in the domain, so I just can’t help but think a powerful domain with a bunch of high authority links behind it could really do some damage in the SERPs

I’ll update the thread with progress

Happy to help

Slightly off-topic from your original intent of the post, but I didn't see any mention of Amazon FBA as one of your sales channels and I was curious if you ever explored that as a way of increasing revenue? If you were able to hit $700k with essentially Google PPC alone, something tells me the numbers on Amazon may be prodigiously larger.

I have several e-commerce businesses myself, but I've focused almost exclusively on Amazon FBA and have done very well on that platform (several million in revenue in my first 3 years on there), so I just figured I'd mention it. If you have any questions about expanding your operations onto there, you can message me or even reply here and I'll gladly answer what I can.

 

[Henny10]

Happy to help

Slightly off-topic from your original intent of the post, but I didn't see any mention of Amazon FBA as one of your sales channels and I was curious if you ever explored that as a way of increasing revenue? If you were able to hit $700k with essentially Google PPC alone, something tells me the numbers on Amazon may be prodigiously larger.

I have several e-commerce businesses myself, but I've focused almost exclusively on Amazon FBA and have done very well on that platform (several million in revenue in my first 3 years on there), so I just figured I'd mention it. If you have any questions about expanding your operations onto there, you can message me or even reply here and I'll gladly answer what I can.

It's funny you should mention Amazon FBA as that is something I've just started looking into. I wanted to wait until I had created a separate brand of my product for selling on Amazon.

That process is almost done so it's a good time to get looking into it.

Thanks for the offer of help, I'd love to pick your brains on a couple of things - I'll send you a PM!

 

[Byteful]

Looking for suggestions people.

I have a small e-commerce site selling consumer electronics (3-4 products). Revenue in the best month was around $700k (market peak) but it has settled down to around $160k per month.

Net profit margins are around 30% after all is said and done, VAT (sales tax), fulfillment, product costs, ads, 1 staff member for CS and other incidentals.

View attachment 224402

I kick myself a little bit because I think I have approached the opportunity all wrong and left a lot of money on the table.

I built out a site on WP/Woocommerce and tried to use blog posts to drive traffic to those posts which then lead to the product page.

Fresh domain, DR6 now after a little bit of link building. Homepage is starting to rank for some good KW's but we're talking small traffic numbers - ALL OF MY SALES COME FROM GOOGLE ADS.

If I could do this all over, I would buy a powerful expired domain and build out a standard format e-commerce store, with category pages being the target for my SEO efforts.

I don't think I wouldn't even add a blog to the site. Google doesn't seem to care about blog posts in my niche - the SERPs are all category pages for e-commerce stores.

Very important lesson for me as a novice SEO - you can do as much KW research as you want BUT YOU NEED TO LOOK AT THE SERPs - what is Google ranking?

Anyway - I'm thinking of purchasing a powerful domain to do what I think I should have done first time around. The current site will keep going too.

There is a particular keyword I want to chase with high commercial intent, rated as Medium (16) difficulty on Ahrefs, and the SERP is category pages for e-commerce stores with DR of 50-70, so I'm going to need some power.

I'm happy to be VERY aggressive with this new site because I will have the safety net of the original site.

Does anyone have any advice for me? I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who has gone through the process of ranking an ecom site in a competitive niche.

Those are big numbers on your screenshot, amazing!

 

[J1218]

It's funny you should mention Amazon FBA as that is something I've just started looking into. I wanted to wait until I had created a separate brand of my product for selling on Amazon.

That process is almost done so it's a good time to get looking into it.

Thanks for the offer of help, I'd love to pick your brains on a couple of things - I'll send you a PM!

Sounds good, just PM me whenever you're ready. I'd love to pick your brain as well on how to best expand my operations off of Amazon since you seem to have that part dialed in. Perhaps we could setup a time to Skype and bounce ideas off each other if that's something you'd be interested in.

 

[googleinc]

Long tail keyword seems juicy for your niche

 

[Space_man]

You’ve been very generous (and PATIENT!) with your responses mate, great job. Liked your insight on shopping intent affecting blogs (made the same mistake myself I think). I have a good e-commerce niche, combo of drop ship and 3PL and just moving more off drop ship to 3PL to increase margin (all boot strapped). Just want to dig into the Google Ads bit a little. Did you concentrate on search ads or shopping (now PMax), what did you maximise for, to give me an idea on scale what is your average customer purchase $, and lastly, what sort of % of purchase price or cost/conversion do you achieve? Giving something back, I use Shopify, find it very easy with good apps, and enough flexibility to custom the code where needed (e.g. getting better GA4 data layers). Have also purchased expired domains, doing 301 directs and exploring building out a content site (per previous t responses in this thread). Too early to comment on results, but some initial kicks from expired.

 

[TechnoTycoon]

Yeah, exemplary significance. But be careful about new domains!

 

[kapsoki]

I'd love to do that - the background story borders on unbelievable

To give enough detail to make it worthwhile I'll probably need to wait until my niche dies though!

It's probably a trending niche when you started? And still trending now?

 

[kapsoki]

It would be interesting to hear what that user has to say about this. I don't disagree that blogs are useful, but for e-commerce, once you have rinsed all the main KW's with your category and product pages I'm not sure just how much value is left in chasing after extremely long tail KW's via blog posts.

Thanks man, it pulled me out of a hole that's for sure. I stuck a screenshot of some of the Stripe payouts purely as a bit of inspiration for others. I love reading about others successes, drives me on a bit

I think you are really smart. You are quite humble. And when your business is doing good, you start considering long term development. You are right. Adwords is for short term, SEO is for long term. Not just SEO, you should also start social media. You should not rely your business only on Google.

Blog posts can be very helpful for your ranking. It depends on what you write. I used to research an ecommerce site in the motorcycle niche. The page on that site with the most backlinks was an ultimate guide to safety in motorcycle riding. And it's quite clear that page helped the ranking of the whole site a lot. Because I didn't find other pages with many backlinks on that site.

And I was not surprised why that ultimate guide page got hundreds of backlinks. Because many motorcycle bloggers really care about safety and they linked to that page quite naturally. And that guide was really good, it's probably the best.

So if you put some similar resources on your site, you will get these benifits:

Attract backlinks. Of course you can't just wait, you also need to outreach to other bloggers.

On your resource pages, interlink to your product pages. So you can get sales directly and pass link juice to your product pages and help them ranking.

Build email list on your blog and then turn your visitors to customers in emails in long term.