When I chose the brand name for my bags, I initially considered “Atomic Baggage” – it’s a play on my name, a word I like a lot, and has great logo possibilities. The problem is, “Atomic” has way too many hits on Google, and there’s already an “Atomic Luggage” (although their site is pretty difficult to find as well). In short, not googlable.

On the other hand, “Zugster Bags” didn’t turn up any hits at all before I registered it. Now all the search results are for my business.

I have a question regarding optimizing my website. Constantly I am approached by companies that say they can drive mega business my way by optimizing the site and adding quality links. They charge anywhere from $800 to $2000 initially plus a monthly charge. My instincts say “beware” as I can’t see how I can track what they would really be doing for me. Sometimes it’s tempting as I am looking for ways to drive more traffic to my website and I am at a loss to exactly what needs to be done. Do any of you have any experience with this on your websites? Is it worth the money or a rip off?

A general rule of thumb that has served me well in business is that if someone calls me pitching something, I probably don’t need it. And, if I do need it, I probably don’t want to buy it from them.

I would pretty much always stay away from companies calling and offering to boost traffic to your website.

One question- I have different domain names registered, do I have to pay for hosting to route them all to my website?

Forwarding has been included for free with the yearly registration fee for the registrars I’ve used in the past.

I will definitely be purchasing several different versions close to my domain name as Mike suggested. Often people spell my company name incorrectly so this would help to send them my direction.

I have a question regarding optimizing my website. Constantly I am approached by companies that say they can drive mega business my way by optimizing the site and adding quality links. They charge anywhere from $800 to $2000 initially plus a monthly charge. My instincts say “beware” as I can’t see how I can track what they would really be doing for me. Sometimes it’s tempting as I am looking for ways to drive more traffic to my website and I am at a loss to exactly what needs to be done. Do any of you have any experience with this on your websites? Is it worth the money or a rip off?

Thanks!

It’s also very inspiring to read of yet another couple that didn’t start out in this area of business yet is successful in this industry. I need all of the inspiration I can get!

One question- I have different domain names registered, do I have to pay for hosting to route them all to my website?

Thanks!

Thanks, Mike, I enjoyed your article. Other areas I’m interested in learning about are: what market research did you use to target your customer?

We didn’t start off with the “let’s start an apparel business, so let’s look at which market we should serve.” We started with Amy saying “I want to make some cute exercise clothes” and me saying, “maybe we could make a business of it…”

Market research wasn’t much more than Amy saying she was having trouble finding things she liked and me realizing that if she was seeing a hole in the market, other women no doubt would as well.

In a market as huge as women’s apparel, that was all we needed, especially since our initial investment was only a few thousand dollars. (And, if it hadn’t worked out, some of the money we spent on equipment would have been recouped on ebay.)

Does your contractor ship finished product to you and you ship to the customer OR is there another option?

We’re doing all of our manufacturing in house. We’ve been down the contractor route three times now. Twice its been an abject failure and once we were able to get some pieces made, but not others. The logistical and timeframe complexity made us abandon the effort.

We’re going to try again in 2007 to get some of our work outsourced. If its a failure again, we’ll accept the fact that we’re going to need to invest heavily in our own infrastructure.

The issues we face with contractors as related to the choices we’ve made in business model and won’t necessarily be something that most DEs run into.

I love the idea of selling directly via the internet. Can you suggest books or other web-sites where I can learn more? Thanks, again!

Good question.

The Ecommerce forum of webmasterworld.com has a fair amount of information. Where I usually recommend people start is in their own heads though. Imagine that you had a web store that people could come to and purchase your items. How would they find you? If they were looking for the products that you sell, what would they type into Google? If you can answer those questions, its probably worth considering selling direct online.

A long while back when my boys’ line was just a thought, I bought the URL and several variants of it. Think I paid about $7 each from GoDaddy.com….best money spent.

I, too, would love to hear more about the process of FitCouture’s order fulfilment.

With friendship,
Lisa

If it is not an english word please check the meaning in other languages – it could have a negative meaning or be a name popular with umm unseemly (word?) practices.

Also, it might pay to think about things like list placement. If you are marketing to people who may choose your business in a somewhat random fashion – think Yellow pages/etc – then a name in the first quarter of the alphabet may prove worthy. I went back & forth with this when choosing my name and just recently got listed in my first children’s wear directory…my business is on the 2nd to last page. alas…