How often do people buy coins from your website? How often are they unique customers who are not friends, referred from a coin forum, etc.? Basically how often do you get a total random person from the world wide web?
In case you are thinking of starting your own coin website, there's a fourth question to ask: Are there any categories or search-word combinations for your website that make you show up in the first two pages of Google? This is critical, and I suspect it's not easy to do. Big companies pay web research services a lot of money to answer this question.
Answer - whenever you get lucky enough to have somebody click on one of your ads found elsewhere. No ads, it's not likely to happen. Can blind searches generate traffic ? Sure, just not very often. And I'd say that if you're not on the 1st page - good luck.
Getting on the first page of a google search is VITAL. Google "Korean coins" and you'll see my site at position #3 under the wikipedia page and ebay (currently, anyway). I don't know about ads. I almost NEVER click on them. But if someone has an ad at another coin site that I'm visiting, then I might. Reciprocating links with other coin-site owners might be a very good idea. I never click on ads just at random places on the web (google page, youtube, anywhere) that some robot thought I'd be a sucker for.
Perhaps once or twice a month I get an email from someone who has found my site by an Internet search. Otherwise, it is generally traffic derived from Coin Talk, PCGS or Facebook.
I don't know how much it costs to list a coin on Collectors Corner that is linked on the PCGS web site. But when looking for a coin it will be one of several places I look. From there I find a coin, click on it and it gives you the dealer info including web site. I have found several dealers that I have now used more than once. I never would have found their sites otherwise. Now if I'm looking for something they are saved in my favorites and I look there first before doing blind searches. Most of them I've used later even if didn't buy the coin I was originally looking for from them.
this thread remined me of something that i had forgot all about. when i first bought a computer in 2011, i signed up for some accounts with coin websites, one of the first ones was rare coin sell. i had listed some coins for sale and never sold anything there. i forgot about the listings. the last time i checked, my listings were still there and i was the ONLY seller on that website. i have not checked those listings for over a year now.
That's a good tip for others to consider using. By the way, for those who are PCGS dealers, it costs $99 per month to list coins on Collector's Corner. As for organic growth of my site, it has been rather slow. I get a little more than one unsolicited purchase from my website monthly. I think that's actually pretty good, considering my lack of advertising. I can't say I have had an existing friend buy off my site yet, although I've become friends with a couple of customers after the fact. Wordof mouth spreads slowly, but it's the best advertisinig there is, so patience must prevail . . . I don't intend to pay anyone per click for banner ads . . . they may work, but in this low-margin business, they just won't pay for themselves.
