As you can see from the title, this article was written for the benifit of militaria dealers and collectors. However, the ideas and principles expressed here are just as valid for someone who is in to collectibles of any kind. Coins, antiques or baseball cards, it's all the same when it comes to internet marketing. I hope that reading this will make you consider whether you want to create your own site, or if it would be better to use a third party site to market your wears. It all depend on how involved you are in the business and how much work you want to put into it. The opinions expressed here are based on my personal experience and someone else may have differnt thoughts on the subject. You can take this for what you feel it is worth. b.t.
"You can have the slickest web site on earth, with the greatest militaria ever seen, but if no one can find it, it don't mean diddle!"*
Most knowledgable militaria dealers and collectors (...who know all the originals from the fakes; can quote the value of every piece to the penny, and know how to drive to every show in the country without a map) know zip when it comes to marketing on the net. To them, their web site is just a side line to their main business of buying and selling in person or on the phone. This is unfortunate because they are missing out on the greatest marketing tool since George Washington invented the dollar bill.
Don't get me wrong, I think every dealer should have a web site. It should provide basic info on the dealer such as his address and phone number, how he does business and what he deals in. And, he should offer some of his militaria on the site as well. This gives the dealer a "web presence" which is good P.R..
Building a web site is easy. If it's a simple one you might be able to do it yourself. If it's going to be more complicated, there are thousands of individuals and companies eager for your business. Either way, creating a web site and getting it up, is a real no-brainer.
Here's a typical synario of what happens next.
Ok, let's say you've built your web site and it's up and running. Now what? You have to get the word out. So you email all your collector buddies and customers and tell them about it. You also trade links with some other sites. Maybe run an ad or two. Then you sit and wait... For the first couple of weeks you get quite a few "hits" as collectors look to see what you have. Then you notice that slowly you are getting less and less traffic, until finally, it drops off to a trickle. It doesn't alway happen like this, only about 99% of the time.
What now? You're not getting any NEW customers. Why? The site is running; you've got great stuff for sale and besides, you're a nice guy... So why are things so slow? If you're imaginative at all, the next thing you do is check to see if people can find your site. So, you go to the search engines and start typing in search terms like , militaria, military,relics, SS, Army, Luftwaffe, medals, daggers etc. etc. Each time you get a list of sites and you start looking down the list for your web site. After you get to about page 150 you figure that this is a waste of time. You can't find your site anywhere. Oh, it's there alright, probably buried down around page 1,243.... Great! What the heck good is that??? Answer: none. Research has shown the most people, after doing a search, will only look at the first few pages of sites. If you're site isn't on the first 3 or 4 pages, forget it! Hardly anyone is going to find you. And if you're buried down on page 1,243, you'll be luckey if you get a hit once every 10 years! (I've looked at all the militaria sites that are on the first couple of pages of results, using the most common search terms in our hobby. For the most part they are "grandfathered in". Which means they are there because they have been up so long, not beause they are doing anything magic... Search engines reward longivity.) Of course, your new site has none...
So, as things now stand, you have a web site, all your friends and old customers know about it and buy something occasionally. But, you're getting little or no new business. This stinks! You've spent money building this site; you're paying each month to host the darn thing; You spent a lot of time designing it and trying to make that stupid computer guy understand what you want. And for what? The business just ain't there. What should you do?
In order to get customers to the site you will have to do some "web promotion". Now, from what I've seen, most militaria sites mainly do this by trading links with their buddies. This works and will bring in some new customers. So, you sit at the computer for hours searching out good militaria sites which have a lot of links and you send them a nicely worded email offering a link trade. You get "some" responses and a few trades and you're off! Somewhat....
But still, thinking about those serach engines bugs you! You want your site to be on the first couple of pages when people serach for your kind of militaria. The question is... How do you get there? Now the real fun starts.
Getting position on search engines is an art, as well as a science. The more heavily a catagory is represented on the net the more difficult it is to "massage" the search engines to your benifit. There are bigger categories, but believe me "militaria" is big enough.
Going into detail on how to make your site "search engine friendly" is beyond the scope of this little article, so I'll keep it short. First you have to "know" what to do. Then you have to do it. Every day you will need to work on the site. Checking your stats to see what collectors are searching for and "tweeking" the site to take advantage. Adding new content constantly. Seach engines don't like sites with stale information. You should add features to your site, like a blog or a forum, to help generate new content. You even need to go so far as to make sure certain characters don't appear in any of the URLs on your site, because they can lower your search engine rating! The "tweeking" can get into some very detailed work. And it goes on and on.... You don't just do these things once and forget it. You have to do them every day to keep on top of things. It takes time... and more time.
You can hire one of those so-called "web promotion companies" who promise to get you on a slew of search engines. They'll do just that, get your site on dozens of search engines... on page 1,243, or 1,242 if you're lucky. And besides most of those search engines don't mean a thing. There are only a hand full that are important. These "services" are a waste of money. You're really on your own.
So, in conclusion, if you spend time studying how the net works; improving and maintaining your site daily; contantly adding new content; massaging the search engines for advantage; and doing all those other little fun things that are required... you will have a successful militaria web site. Of course, you won't have time left to buy or sell any militaria.
* An old saying I just made up. B.T.
About the Author
Bob Treend has been involved in militaria for over 35 years as a collector, dealer, publisher and author. He has written numerous articles on the different aspects of militaria collecting. http://germanmilitariacollectibles.com
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