Life of an Online Business – My Pillow place

Our weekend was particulary sucky in terms of sales…almost no activity.  Today, we finally had a good day.  This month is about to set a new low record for sales in a month…not since April 2007 have we seen a performance this pathetic.  I’m using this slow time to optimize pages, exchange more links and figure out some new products to add.  This also gives me time to work on our new affiliate site, yourhomescape.com. 

I’ve been looking to expand our dog beds collection.  We have been working with this company for over a year, but haven’t added any of their products yet.  I think its time to select some of their products.  This company will help add some diversity of product and price points to this section of our site.

As of today, I finally figured out how to customize our header logo…so now our logo reflected a similar tone to what is on our site at My Pillow Place….its actually the same header with some modifications to fit the blog header limitations.  I like it better than the default one I’ve had for many moons…however, maybe at some time I get more creative and make it even better…but for now, as I work on our next website, this one is fine.

I’ve been trading links like a mad man lately…using LinkMarket, I’ve been requesting links left and right to help get our site better regarded in Google.  I noticed that I had an error in my My Pillow Place Link Hub page.  Its frustrating because I’ve been requesting links, but I have to wait until they reply back.  I’ve got about 91 linkk trades pending and I add more each day.   Other’s take their time in responding.  I used to take my time when I had more to do.  So I understand.

This is all designed to get more Google love to pages on my site that people aren’t finding.  The more competitive keywords I seek are harder to get ranked for.

I thought we were heading towards a little recovery after our dismal month of May.  June got a little better.  But as July is 7 days old now, I’m seeing the bad economy creeping back.  You hear on the news how “consumer confidence his risen in the month of ________.”  Or “the jobless rate has fallen in the month of ________.”  And, I don’t know how many people are affected by this news.  How many people act on it…but from my point of view, when I had my Architect job and was receiving a paycheck, I spent money (doing my part to help the economy). Now that I’m unemployed, I’ve tightened my belt. 

I like spending money…but I’m not an idiot.  When I don’t have an income, I don’t spend on things I don’t need.

That aside…what is happening with My Pillow Place?  Well..we’ve been a little slow.  Sales are down a bit, though traffic is getting higher.  That I can’t explain.  I wish I knew what people wanted so I could give it to them.  What specifically are people searching for that we are not providing?  Our job is to provide great products at great prices for our visitors.  We try to do that.

I’ve been paying attention to what people are searching for to get to our site.  Our control panel shows keywords and search engines visitors used to land at My Pillow Place.  I’m seeing a trend that is bringing a variety of people to various pages on our site using different search terms.  That is good.  It is important for people to find a variety ways to get to us rather than just using one or two search terms…its like diversifying your portfolio…you never want all your eggs in one basket.