- Mar 22, 2013
- 5,789
- 10,236
First of all: Merry Christmas! This is something I was thinking about for a long time. For the last few years I was building mostly CPA websites and niche blogs, which were blackhat and got penalized over and over again. It was pure churn and burn. I made good money with it (still running now) but I finally wanna work on something long term and sustainable. Instead of CPA websites I want to build online shops. I already have experience with it: Started dropshipping on Shopify back in 2017 and made some quick bucks with it. Later on sold the shop for around $1500 (actually I just listed it for sale for fun). Back then I was getting traffic through Facebook ads, built an email list, had social accounts etc.
For this journey my main source of traffic will be Google (SEO).
What I got:
- a creative mind to come up with brands and ideas
- A bunch of SEO tools (Ahrefs, GSA, Scrapebox etc.)
- Knowledge in building websites and online shops
- Knowledge in doing SEO and social media marketing
- Knowledge in copywriting
- Lots of time & no pressure of earning money any time soon
What I will do:
- come up with brands and register the .com domain for them
- creating social accounts (Ig, fb, pinterest etc.)
- buying articles for the blogs of the shops
- writing unique category and product descriptions
- doing on- and off page SEO
- growing social media accounts through influencer and automation tools
Whats my goal?
My main goal is to rank the branded shops on Google. Later on sell the shops or private label my own products and sell them through my shop and amazon FBA. Maybe you noticed already I don't set a goal like $100k a year or something like this. This is because I really don't know how this will turn out.
_______________________
Some other questions might coming up:
What CMS will I use?
Mostly Wordpress/Woocommerce, because I already bought some nice themes a while ago. Another aspect is there are just so many helpful plugins and its way easier to customize a wordpress theme for me than a Shopify theme. Also I already have a hosting and SSL. However, I will also use Shopify for some shops. I will use the affiliated plan, means I don’t need to pay monthly, if I have no sales. This will give me time to rank my website first.
What products?
Here it gets a bit tricky. I choose a niche based on the demand and the trends. I will use ahrefs to figure out keywords/products with a low keyword difficulty and a minimum of monthly searches, then add this kinda products to the store.
Where do I get the products from?
Aliexpress -> Dropshipping. For me its very important to let you guys know its not primarily about dropshipping or making sales. Its about ranking the shop. You can think of the products as filler content. However, if someone wants to purchase the products they can do so. Of course I will make sure to keep the policies fair, prices low and the shipping fast..
How do you come up with product descriptions etc.?
I will write them myself. If I need any "inspiration" I will take a look on Amazon, make some notes and then write my own unique description of this product. At least 300 words per product.
What niche?
There are some niches, which are doing extremely well. For example:
- Decoration
- Housing/Gardening
- Pets
- Gym
- Tech
- Gaming
- Jewelry & Accessories etc.
I find Oberlo's blog very helpful. They always come up with statistic and helpful posts. Check it here:
https://www.oberlo.com/blog
Will you build a niche store, single product store or general store?
I try to avoid general stores, because its a lot more work. Single product stores are fine, easier to rank, but it must be in a great niche (in terms of trends) with low competition and at least medium monthly searches...and thats hard to find. Niche stores are the way to go in my opinion. Focus on one niche (or sub niche - for example gaming headsets), get all the information around this niche and build trust to your customers.
Will you share your stores with us?
Maybe from time to time I will post the URL.
_______________________
This will be a long journey. I have no idea where it will take me. It might be possible I will fail badly (well, at least I will learn lots of things) or I might end up being a millionaire if I do things right.
I will keep you guys updated.
For this journey my main source of traffic will be Google (SEO).
What I got:
- a creative mind to come up with brands and ideas
- A bunch of SEO tools (Ahrefs, GSA, Scrapebox etc.)
- Knowledge in building websites and online shops
- Knowledge in doing SEO and social media marketing
- Knowledge in copywriting
- Lots of time & no pressure of earning money any time soon
What I will do:
- come up with brands and register the .com domain for them
- creating social accounts (Ig, fb, pinterest etc.)
- buying articles for the blogs of the shops
- writing unique category and product descriptions
- doing on- and off page SEO
- growing social media accounts through influencer and automation tools
Whats my goal?
My main goal is to rank the branded shops on Google. Later on sell the shops or private label my own products and sell them through my shop and amazon FBA. Maybe you noticed already I don't set a goal like $100k a year or something like this. This is because I really don't know how this will turn out.
_______________________
Some other questions might coming up:
What CMS will I use?
Mostly Wordpress/Woocommerce, because I already bought some nice themes a while ago. Another aspect is there are just so many helpful plugins and its way easier to customize a wordpress theme for me than a Shopify theme. Also I already have a hosting and SSL. However, I will also use Shopify for some shops. I will use the affiliated plan, means I don’t need to pay monthly, if I have no sales. This will give me time to rank my website first.
What products?
Here it gets a bit tricky. I choose a niche based on the demand and the trends. I will use ahrefs to figure out keywords/products with a low keyword difficulty and a minimum of monthly searches, then add this kinda products to the store.
Where do I get the products from?
Aliexpress -> Dropshipping. For me its very important to let you guys know its not primarily about dropshipping or making sales. Its about ranking the shop. You can think of the products as filler content. However, if someone wants to purchase the products they can do so. Of course I will make sure to keep the policies fair, prices low and the shipping fast..
How do you come up with product descriptions etc.?
I will write them myself. If I need any "inspiration" I will take a look on Amazon, make some notes and then write my own unique description of this product. At least 300 words per product.
What niche?
There are some niches, which are doing extremely well. For example:
- Decoration
- Housing/Gardening
- Pets
- Gym
- Tech
- Gaming
- Jewelry & Accessories etc.
I find Oberlo's blog very helpful. They always come up with statistic and helpful posts. Check it here:
https://www.oberlo.com/blog
Will you build a niche store, single product store or general store?
I try to avoid general stores, because its a lot more work. Single product stores are fine, easier to rank, but it must be in a great niche (in terms of trends) with low competition and at least medium monthly searches...and thats hard to find. Niche stores are the way to go in my opinion. Focus on one niche (or sub niche - for example gaming headsets), get all the information around this niche and build trust to your customers.
Will you share your stores with us?
Maybe from time to time I will post the URL.
_______________________
This will be a long journey. I have no idea where it will take me. It might be possible I will fail badly (well, at least I will learn lots of things) or I might end up being a millionaire if I do things right.
I will keep you guys updated.
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