Couldn't have "splained" it better myself, Lisa. Not to discourage you shopgirl but you are trying to do A LOT for a first site. It's overwhelming to me just trying to understand the real focus of your site.

It's much easier to target ONE specific audience. As the saying goes, if you try to target everyone, you'll target no one. Home decor, electronic help, eBay advice, it's all just too much to digest.

Let me just ask you a simple question. Can you give me 3 main keyword phrases you'd want to be found for in the search engines? If it's hard to come up with an answer, that may be a sign your site is too broad.

I hope you don't feel like we're beating up your idea because I love your enthusiasm. We just want you to have realistic expectations for a site such as this. I agree you should really spend some time narrowing this topic much more or you'll be in for a big disappointment in the traffic arena. There's no such thing as "Build and they will come". You need to give people a reason to find and then bookmark you.

And this list of 600 people you speak of. Are these all just random people you've met in forums or do they all have something in common? Because if I met you in a forum and I'm on your list but I'm not interested in that kind of site I'm going to feel like you sending me an email is spam. Are these all people into home decor? Electronics? Friends of yours? Having a list is great but hopefully these are people you know will be interested in this site and have given you permission to email them.

Wishing you all the best!

__________________
Just call me Max.

Hi guys!

I don't mind you playing devil's advocate at all. I rather have that than a yes man. For sure!

I guess I should give a little background as to how I came up with this idea. Believe me, I'm not crazy. Well, maybe that's to be decided yet.

Okay. I started working on computers over 25 years ago on a Commodore 64 when code was the only thing you had and it was stored on a cassette player and your monitor was a black and white TV. It took 3 days of playing around to code a pong game for the first time but I learned a lot. Especially since the code book sent with the C64 (which I still have) had errors in it.

I own Juliet's Cottage, an online home dec store featuring custom upholstered headboards (I was the second person to offer slipcovered headboards, our speciality) bedding and window treatments. I went online 6 years ago with 25 years of decorating experience behind me. I built the site myself using the templates of the host. Six years ago, 2 companies and myself were the only ones listed on Google, Yahoo or MSN when you searched for upholstered headboards. Today, there are 100s of companies listed. I took them 6 years to catch up with me though! If you visit the site, it may seem a little dated. That's because I'm in the process of changing it to another location and making it an information site for health reasons. Unfortunately, I just can't do the physical work anymore.

This is where the 600 people come from. Six years of collecting highend, targeted names via the newsletter sign up. And they're still signing up today. (I had an average of 10000/month traffic last year.) I've been helping them find great things for their homes for years and most of them come to me to help them when they don't have time or know where to search.

I'll be introducing them to the new shop listings for the home sections but I've helped them find everything from island resorts to baby gifts. My customers really are like friends and they know I'll help them with whatever they need, if I can. They are very busy and don't have time to search for the best places to shop.

They are part of the reason I started this. I want to build a site for people with too little time and/or patience to search the overcrowded net for what they want. They want ease of shopping and to make it easy to shop their favorite stores. They don't want to have 20,000 listings for upholstered headboards. They want a few stores that offer quality products and great service.

Well, I've run out of time right now. I hope I've answered a few questions.

Thanks for asking. I'll be happy to answer any questions. I wish I could start building the site so you could "see" what I'm talking about but I have to wait for hostgator to update to Joomla 1.5 before I start.

__________________
Shopgirl
Where do we go from here?

Oh OK, that makes a little more sense now that you've explained it. I really wasn't sure what kind of site this was going to be. I still think I need to see the end result to fully understand but that does help.

__________________
Don't put the cart before the horse.
Plan your website, then create it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recent Blog Posts...

Make Money as a YouTube Partner
Don't Discount Amazon's Affiliate Program
Finally! AdSense Ads for Feedburner!

I know. It's hard to see what someone is talking about without visuals. I have some time on my hands right due to Hostgator not having the new version of Joomla uploaded yet so I'm going to cruise the forum and ask questions and who knows, maybe I'll be able to help someone while I still have time to contribute something.

thanks!

__________________
Shopgirl
Where do we go from here?