OREM, Utah, June 24, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- John and Kimberly Dinsley of Crawford, Nebraska had tried two other platforms to build the website they wanted—one online, the other from a conference they'd attended—and neither had worked out. Neither was a scam; they just didn't work for John and Kimberly. It was discouraging. Not long after their second attempt went sour, they got an invitation from StoresOnline, an e-commerce services company. The invitation was to a Preview conference in their area that would talk about building and promoting websites. After the discouragement they'd suffered, they decided to attend this conference only because they were determined to have a website where they could sell the book John had written on the medicinal uses of activated charcoal (Title: CharcoalRemedies.com).
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John has always been self-employed. At the time, he had a renovation business but was tired of it. He had a background in preventive medicine, had written his book on the uses of charcoal in preventive medicine, and wanted to sell it online. He'd managed to have his two sons build him a website but it just wasn't working out like he wanted.
"I thought they'd disown me, I was bugging them so often to make changes on my website," John laughed, speaking of his boys. "I needed something I could control myself but I didn't know much about computers, much less programming or Web design."
Once More Into the Breach
Of the StoresOnline Preview conference, John said, "It was raining cats and dogs the day we went and we were skeptical because of our two previous failed attempts. But we wanted to change the direction of our lives and decided to see if StoresOnline could be any different from the other methods we'd tried."
StoresOnline holds 90-minute Preview conferences where they have a professional speaker talk about how to build and promote an e-commerce business and how StoresOnline can help. They also try to get people to an all-day training Workshop where people can learn more and contract with StoresOnline, if they choose to.
"I had to convince him to go the training Workshop with me," Kimberly remembered. The training Workshop is the day-long class that follows the Preview conference.
"Within the first 15 minutes at the Workshop, we were comfortable," said John. "It looked like this could be something we could learn from, and not just a sales pitch. By the time we were halfway through the workshop, we knew this was it. We were already deciding how to pay for a three-site package."
Kimberly and John say they felt "saturated" at the Workshop because of all the information being presented but it gave them what they needed to get moving.
This time John felt he had all he needed to move forward with building and promoting his own website. It took him about two months to build and publish that first website. It was about the only thing he concentrated on during that time.
"I used the 'Back' button A LOT," John said. "I didn't have much computer experience so I had to re-read everything to understand what I was supposed to do. I called customer support daily and spent hours on the phone with them. But they were always very patient with me."
Getting Results
When he was finally ready to publish his site, John was nervous.
"I was shaking in my boots when I hit that 'Publish' button," John remembered. "I knew my site wasn't perfect but it was time to take the plunge." After publishing that first site, it took them about a week to see their first order.
At first they just used Google AdWords to promote their website but soon expanded from there.
"There was no 'magic pill'," John said. "Our traffic and business just grew steadily each time we learned something new to promote our site and then tried it. Maybe the closest thing to a 'magic pill' was the day I discovered the 'Analyze' button. I use that all the time now to optimize my sites."
Because of their efforts and the growing popularity of activated charcoal, the Dinsley's page rank is number 2 on Google and they get about 600 visitors a day. They have three sites live so far.
John's sons tell him he knows more about Web marketing than they do, now.
"Without StoresOnline I'd still be calling my sons to adjust my website way too often. They'd hate me," John smiled. These days he does it all himself but admits that he sometimes goes weeks without doing much marketing. He spends most of his time doing customer support and processing orders.
What do so many people want with activated charcoal? It's used in filters of various sorts, to calm upset stomachs, as an odor arrestor, and more. We won't go into all the things people use it for. Suffice it to say it has many uses. No matter what people intend to use it for, they can now find it much more easily because of the efforts of the Dinsleys and their StoresOnline websites.
Their activated charcoal business is now the only job John and Kimberly have. Kimberly works four and a half days a week; John almost daily. Sometimes they work late, sometimes not, depending on the volume of orders coming through. It took a lot of time and effort to build their business and it still takes a lot of time to run it now that it's built but they enjoy the independence they have now. They hired an employee who can run the place while they're gone so they don't feel as tied to it as they once did. They also recently expanded their office and warehouse space.
John says he's reprinted his book several times since those early days and expanded his product line dramatically because of what he's been able to accomplish with his StoresOnline websites.
"It's funny," John recalls, "when we first started out we set what we thought were pretty lofty goals. From where we are now, those goals look pretty modest."
About StoresOnline
StoresOnline is a subsidiary of iMergent (Amex:IIG) based in Orem, Utah. It is a technology company specializing in e-commerce services for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
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