GJ said 29 minutes later

A little content on posts doesn't hurt. Even a cute byline:

Check out the new Camaro! Even if you've been hearing about it since the Stone Age.

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Geoff said 30 minutes later

that's too much work.

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Steve said 2 days later

They're pretty sweet, saw one the other day. Back isn't anything special, but front and front 3/4 view is awesome.

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Geoff said 2 days later

I can't wait to see one in person. I had fun building my own. Probably one of the best car builders I've used to date..or at least most enjoyable. I think VW had a good one...but their cars aren't nearly as cool.

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GJ said 2 days later

The reviews of this are starting to come in. There's not as glowing as I thought they'd be at Jalopnik.

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GJ said 3 days later

Here's Jalopnik's.

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Geoff said 3 days later

ouch. Other than my car looking like a rental car, they had pretty good things to say about it! (and it doesn't look anything like a freaking rental car...at least not the cars I end up renting).

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GJ said 3 days later

No, but compared to the Camaro's good looks it's not that gr8. But I think you got the better of the two from an overall perspective, and so does Jalopnik's dude.

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Geoff said 3 days later

I guess so! The Camaro is quite cool looking though.

GJ said 3 minutes later

Nope, haven't heard of it...but here's the one I've read! It's none other than the Bad Astronomer!

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GJ said about 16 hours later

Spent a few minutes reviewing this site--it's pretty amusing. It's funny--bad physics doesn't drive me too nuts, but Star Wars Episode 3 was so freaking ridiculous it was hard to watch. Not that any of the other Star Wars films had much to crow about regarding real-life physics.

Unfortunately, real-life physics doesn't always make for a fun movie.

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Marc said about 18 hours later

This is funny you should post this. I sent you an e-mail yesterday and immediately thought, "Wow, I haven't seen Kristen on the blog in a while." Couple minutes later, this showed up.

Pretty funny site too!

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GJ said 1 day later

That's synchronicity, right? Carl Jung would approve.
.
.
.
.
I'm pulling your leg of course.

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Marc said 1 day later

Haha yup. Actually, I blame the butterfly for all things that happen in this world.

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GJ said 7 days later

LOL

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GJ said 7 days later

And no, it didn't take six days to get it, only six to realize there was another comment on this post.

Steve said about 22 hours later

Sounds good Kristen! I took another look at the site, it's very professional looing, nice job!

We missed you (and GJ, Darcy, Abby, Trevor, Aaron, Eric, Gina, Kyle, and Katelyn) at Easter. It was a nice, quiet Easter, hope everyone else enjoyed it (though sounds like GJ could have had a little bit more enjoyable of a weekend).

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GJ said 1 day later

Nice, Kristen! I hope your early success continues.

So...I assume you've gotten your tax angles covered--if not, be sure to read up on what you need to do or get an accountant who specializes in LLCs. I assume you are collecting tax from your buyers, right?

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Geoff said 1 day later

Sounds great Kristen! Your site is looking good too! Those darn Yahoo web builders have pretty much eliminated the need for people like me for startup businesses. Glad to see it is working out for you, keep trucking along!

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GJ said 2 days later

Here's a link for Yahoo Sponsored Search--$100 discount.

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Kristen said 2 days later

Cool! Yeah we're pretty well covered on the tax issue. When we applied for the business license, we actually did it through a tax guy. So he did a good job explaining what we had to do and what to watch out for. We're going to go through him to file. And Nancy, one of the five of us business partners, was a business teacher who took accounting classes in college so she is doing the books. So far so good! We do collect tax from Virginia residents, and we got a Visa/Mastercard thingee so we can let people use charge cards--most of our business is through that! We just scored another promotion at a hotel in Arlington, so we're hoping to rake in some dough there.
I just wish that we would pop up with yahoo or google. Nothing yet. I'm starting to wonder if it's the whole .net thing.

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Geoff said 2 days later

com is always better, however, it takes time to appear on google/yahoo. Some of the websites I designed took months before they popped up on Yahoo/Google and ranked relatively decent (aka, typing in the company name to actually show up on the first page). For you to show up on the first page of a search, you may have to wait another 3 or 4 months....no joke.

The internet is just plain crowded. Unless you pay to play, or are a highly specialized industry that isn't oversaturated on the Net...you will have a tough time getting quality search results. There are a lot of things you can do to help your site. For instance, make sure you have quality text on the site. For you, that is a bit tougher as you sell handbags...only so much you can tell about them. One thing you can do is try to get your website posted on other websites. Referring sites can really help you site in search rankings, especially on prominent websites. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) takes time. It is not an overnight process, nor is it a "flip the switch" and let the search engines do the rest.

There are companies out there making good money solely selling SEO services. If you want to jump into the Internet and gain some sales from people searching, pay-per-click. It will get you on the search engines instantly. You really are getting great advertising dollars. Every click you pay for is someone physically going to your site. You can't get that guarantee with any other advertising channel out there.

Go Google for Pay-Per-Click, most of your searches are from Google anyways. Yahoo will probably index your site better for free anyway. Google is more thorough in their indexing and tougher for new-comers like you to show up high in the rankings.

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Kristen said 3 days later

Good news! We do show up now on Yahoo and Google when you do butler bag and our company name! That was exciting! I signed up for the yahoo sponsored search that GJ listed above, and I listed some things in Google base, which I think made us come up better. I also listed our list on a whole bunch of other search engines...so maybe that's helping.

I've gotten lots of offers for SEO, most that sound scammy. I'm pleased with where we are now, and we will get our website posted on the website for our next promotion soon. I also found out that I can set up a shopping cart feature through paypal, so I'll be revamping my ordering process soon.

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GJ said 3 days later

Yeah, there is a lot of scam work in the SEO market. Even Google and Yahoo have come under fire for click-fraud. Proceed cautiously, and spend sparingly. :)

GJ said 8 minutes later

You have a phone number on the site?? Where does that go?

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Geoff said about 1 hour later

Looks good Kristen! Glad the Yahoo business helped! I've recommended it to a few people because it is a successful program for young business entrepreneurs like yourself (Safari needs a spell check like FireFox).

I think it is a great start and hopefully works out for you. If you find yourselves engulfed in customers (and cash), give me a call and we'll build you a custom website solution like nothing you've seen! Until then, rock on with the new site!

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Kristen said about 2 hours later

the phone number goes to a phone line that we set up especially for the business.
Do you think that's ok?

Thanks Geoff, I don't see us getting engulfed in cash anytime soon, right now it's
just tooling around and all hoping to get the business off the ground. I'm hoping
that I'll be able to pick marc's brain about creating a shopping cart program if
I can't get something to work on my own. I have a creepy feeling that they are
complicated.

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Kristen said about 2 hours later

the phone number goes to a phone line that we set up especially for the business.
Do you think that's ok?

Thanks Geoff, I don't see us getting engulfed in cash anytime soon, right now it's
just tooling around and all hoping to get the business off the ground. I'm hoping
that I'll be able to pick marc's brain about creating a shopping cart program if
I can't get something to work on my own. I have a creepy feeling that they are
complicated.

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Steve said about 7 hours later

Web site looks really good Kristen! Looks like you undercut all the other resellers by $10 too!

So guys, what does it take to get Kristen's web site to show up when you do a Yahoo search? I found a few other resellers (including the original designer), but no links to Kristen's sight. Even when you search for Ladolcevitaonline, all you get is the .com website.

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Kristen said about 7 hours later

I think I'd have to pay for this, unfortunately. I'd like to set up a "store" in ebay. I can't say that I expect to get a lot of looks from people just googling butler bag. It would be nice, but probably more expensive than we can afford. We mostly did it because when we mention it to people the first thing they ask is, oh, do you have a website? I'm hoping we'll be able to use it as a tool to spread the word by word of mouth at firt. That has worked well so far. I even had our first customer email today with this method.

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GJ said about 7 hours later

There are some things you can do to the page to get you picked up by the spiders. The paid things you're talking about are sponsored search--you first want to get some ranking by normal search. Your bro Geoff can probably help with that, as I've been out of practice with that knowhow for more than a few years.

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Geoff said about 18 hours later

It will take time to get your website up on the search listings. One of the things you can do is submit your site to the search engine for free. You can easily do this with Yahoo and Google by clicking on the "Advertise with Us" link or "submit your site." This is a first start. It can take up to 8 weeks before a crawler gets to your site, but typically they'll at least begin to visit your site within a week.

Some suggestions for you Kristen for SEO (search engine optimization)....make sure your pages have a Title. Your homepage just says "Home." That is no good, you want to have your company name in there, then a brief description about what your services are. Search engines will search through your title too, not just the content in your website. The trick is to have the "keywords" people are going to search for in your title, and in your text. The other trick is to have Meta Data in your website. I'm not sure if the Google builder gives you this option or not, but typically you put in "Meta Keywords" and "Meta Description."

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GJ said 1 day later

Aw, Geoff, you don't know how to Googlebomb?

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Geoff said 1 day later

That was so last year haha.

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Eric said 2 days later

Great idea Kristen! I'm so proud!

Dad might be able to help you with the eBay thing, although he doesn't have a store. Are they selling very well on eBay?

I've really been trying to figure out a gimmick to sell on eBay; I'm so impressed that you and your friends came up with this!

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GJ said 4 days later

I'd suggest memory water. Suckers are buying that stuff in droves these days.

GJ said 1 day later

That's one mouthful of a URL! :)

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Geoff said 1 day later

You need a .com address if you can.

.net just doesn't have the same impact, not to mention people are used to typing .com and may end up going to the wrong site.

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GJ said 1 day later

If they get the first part right, they'll get the .net part right. hehe.

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Geoff said 1 day later

You'd be surprised.

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GJ said 1 day later

I'm kidding you. I know people are stupid. After all, I'm one of 'em.

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Kristen said 1 day later

Well, we tried, but everything that was a good variation was taken...

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GJ said 2 days later

Yeah, that's not too surprising in this day and age. It wasn't all that surprising even ten years ago, in fact. :)

Geoff said 15 minutes later

Yahoo offers a business account which will allow you to host a website, build it, and even allow people to purchase from you using their credit card. You will be charged a small percentage (I think like 2.5% from Yahoo) for each transaction. I would look into that. I'm not sure what Google offers.

Don't spend too much on making a killer website at first, make it clean and easy to use. To get the most out of your website though, you will need to advertise with pay-per-click programs from Google and/or Yahoo or else no one will get to your website through searches. You can set a limit of how much you want to spend a month, and that determines how high up you rank (and this all depends on what keywords you choose). This can range from a few dollars a click to hundreds (yes per click, and to be ranked number 1 on a particular word).

If you can't afford to advertise, I wouldn't bother spending much on your website because your only visitors will be you and whomever you refer the site too in most instances. if you decide to use pay-per-click...don't do a lot of words for little CPC (cost per click). Pick a few words, and load up the cash on them. For your stuff, expect to dish out at least $100/month for much action (remember you pay everytime someone clicks, if no one clicks, you don't pay, however once you reach your set monthly limit, your taken off the advertised listing until next month, but expect to hit your montly limit everytime).

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Kristen said about 1 hour later

We were actually thinking of having the website more as a reference and spread the word by word of mouth for starters. We aren't aiming to make a lot just from people googling "purse" or whatever. We figure that when we start having parties (think tupperware style) people might ask if we have a website. I'll look into the yahoo business account though, that sounds interesting. Thanks Geoff!

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GJ said about 3 hours later

You should definitely allow people to order from your website ASAP. Ten years ago this wasn't necessary--today, it is. How else are you going to sell? It doesn't sound like you'll have a brick and mortar storefront, nor a phone ordering system, so unless you give prospective customers an easy way to buy, you'll make no money.

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GJ said about 5 hours later

oops, sorry, missed your comment about hosting parties. :) anyhow...it still makes sense to have a website you can make sales on....

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GJ said about 5 hours later

OK, now for the party pooper role. Kristen--did you build a business plan? Who are your competitors? What are you bringing to the market that someone else isn't?



I ask these questions because I see that Butler Bag has a lot of brick and mortar stores selling this item already. So...why will people buy at the parties, or website, when they may well be able to buy at a brick and mortar store for perhaps (maybe even likely) less money? That's a concern--not sure if you addressed these kind of issues in a business plan or not.

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Geoff said about 17 hours later

It appears they have only one store in all of NY. So unless you live nearby, you can't buy direct from them online (not yet anyway).

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GJ said 1 day later

Kristen doesn't live in NY, funny guy. Even if she was planning to do this in NY, there is no guarantee that 10-20 stores won't suddenly start carrying these purses, especially if they become the next big thing.



My point is...you should never start a business without a solid business plan. That business plan had better cover topics like competition...

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Geoff said 1 day later

Ok, there are only two stores in all of Virginia tough guy. :)

Competition...ppppshaw! What are the chances of this coming into the hands of a big department store, or a Target or something....oh, crap.

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GJ said 2 days later

it will if they deem it profitable for them

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Geoff said 3 days later

Yes I know, I was being facetious, silly.

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Kristen said 3 days later

I can't see these things at Target. I think that they are comparable to the Vera Bradley collections--found in specialty, small, boutique type stores. I'm going to tool around the yahoo deal this weekend and see how it goes! (I'll also be trying to locate a business plan prototype to copy, and I'll be checking out how our competition has been handling things. We actually looked into that to change up our pricing!)

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Geoff said 3 days later

Good luck with it, let us know how you fair out!

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GJ said 3 days later

Good move on the business plan. You certainly want to fully understand what you're undertaking, what you hope to achieve, and how you'll get there. It can be rather eye-opening...but businesses that don't have one almost always fail.