# Should I break the site into two sites?



## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Just wondering if my friends here think I should keep the graphics and tees on the same site or create a completely different t-shirt shop? Any wisdom will be appreciated.


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## pauseisabove (Dec 19, 2006)

MotoskinGraphix said:


> Just wondering if my friends here think I should keep the graphics and tees on the same site or create a completely different t-shirt shop? Any wisdom will be appreciated.


I would suggest two separate sites linking back to each other. Creates stats for your site as well. I am not a Tshirt Printer though like the rest of you so maybe someone has some better advice.


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## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

I have 6 sites running and have links back to each other. As I control my server space. I can buy a domain name in the morning and have a web site up by late afternoon. I do all my own designs as well.


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## prometheus (Oct 19, 2006)

I'm mixed. I would say that it depends on whether the shirt side of your businees is going to grow more. Meaning more into it's own thing. Then I would split the two with obvious linking and interaction between them. If it is going to stay the same, I would just keep it where it is.


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

That will depend on your ability to maintain 2 _quality _sites that will most likely have 2 complete designs and "personalities". The keyword is quality. It's pretty tough when both are busy, even though it may not seem like it now. We started with 2, now thinking of either merge them or just drop our other business completely.


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## John S (Sep 9, 2006)

I would go for two (or more) web sites. You and I know that T-shirts and auto vinyl come off the same cutter, but to the average person, that is a stretch of imagination. 
It might help you get into other venues beside the auto show if you focus on events for just the T-shirt side of things.

Yes, cross sell the other sites products. "You like this T?, I can put it on you car..."


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## hammered (Apr 14, 2006)

Id leave them as one. Its what Im doing, although my site is crap (I gotta learn a bit of site design) The designs you offer are aimed at your target market and sit nicely as another product in the category. I would add say Fluffy Pink Unicorn designs or "My lil Troll" one piece baby suits. Just my thoughts.


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

pauseisabove said:


> I would suggest two separate sites linking back to each other. Creates stats for your site as well. I am not a Tshirt Printer though like the rest of you so maybe someone has some better advice.


Thanks for the response...I can track any and all hits on the website...thats really not the obvious question for marketing puroses. More a business of content is too much and do things get lost in the looking.


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

badalou said:


> I have 6 sites running and have links back to each other. As I control my server space. I can buy a domain name in the morning and have a web site up by late afternoon. I do all my own designs as well.


No problem with the ability to create a website, thats fairly easy to do. Really doesnt help get you bookmarked on the search engines and ranked well enough to draw customers. Placement and the ability to draw specific traffic converted into sales is the key I dont think I could effectively manage six sites. I am happy you do all your own designs and so do I at every event we participate in with custom vinyl shirts. I also know the value of point of sale and cant argue with 15.00 bucks for 2 minutes work using stock transfers. I have no problem with stock transfers because they are generally better quality and cheaper images than I could hope to produce on our limited budget. Point of sale which I know you have seen rules the day!!!!


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

prometheus said:


> I'm mixed. I would say that it depends on whether the shirt side of your businees is going to grow more. Meaning more into it's own thing. Then I would split the two with obvious linking and interaction between them. If it is going to stay the same, I would just keep it where it is.


As a business...arent the two linked? If one segment grows faster than another isnt that a positive for any website endeavor. I have basically started with the vinyl and grown into the t-shirts. The website is optimized and ranked for vinyl graphics. The t-shirts came from doing events and needing an additional revenue stream. The idea has worked very well. The demographic at the auto events we participate in blends well with the gear we supply. I just dont know if there is a benefit splitting the two on the internet?


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Vtec44 said:


> That will depend on your ability to maintain 2 _quality _sites that will most likely have 2 complete designs and "personalities". The keyword is quality. It's pretty tough when both are busy, even though it may not seem like it now. We started with 2, now thinking of either merge them or just drop our other business completely.


Take a look at my site and give me your impression please....we come from a similar market.


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## Robin (Aug 28, 2006)

to me it depends on how you are selling yourself.

If you are selling yourself as a "whole package" car skins, matching shirts, or car themed shirts...then my thought is one site.

If its an entity all on its own, then....go with a seperate site.

I like the fact that someone comes to our site looking for personalized t's then sees that we also can make their signs, and whatnot.


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Robin said:


> to me it depends on how you are selling yourself.
> 
> If you are selling yourself as a "whole package" car skins, matching shirts, or car themed shirts...then my thought is one site.
> 
> ...


Well its certainly more convenient as one site as far as building name recognition and everyday business. Just takes time and probably some sort of advertisments. I am still working on building the t-shirt end of things and optimising those pages for consumption. Always a work in progress.


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

If you change your site's design a little to include graphics for both shirts and decals, I think it will work.


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## Jasonda (Aug 16, 2006)

David,

I think you could go either way on this one. Normally I would say to split it up, but since the designs and target market are going to be very, very similar, it might be better to leave it as-is.

If you want to leave it as-is, there are several things you can do to change the site so that t-shirts can get a little more attention.

Right now the main emphasis of your site is obviously the car graphics, with t-shirts on the side. The impression that I get from the main page is that it's 90% car graphics, 10% t-shirts. It would be very easy it so that there is a little more focus on t-shirts. There are a couple of ways to do this.

1) On the main page of the site (index.html), re-work it a bit so the t-shirts are more prominent. Maybe include a picture of a shirt (right now there are just cars). Basically you want people to understand that you have two product lines, "Motoskin Graphix" and "Motoskin T-shirts".

2) On the t-shirt page, change the page to function more as a mini home page rather than just a product page. Create a new header image, call it "Motoskin T-shirts" or something, add some images of t-shirts to the header rather than just cars. It would also be a good idea to add a tag line here, like "T-shirts for the auto enthusiast" or something (I am sure you can think of a better one).

4) Next, rework your "Motoskin Graphix" page (products.html) so it is more self-contained. I would remove the links from the nav menu that only relate to graphics (Colors, Application help, Free decals) and just link them directly from the main products page instead.

Now your nav menu will have fewer links, so it would basically look like this:

Home
Motoskin Graphix (or car graphics, or whatever.. just don't call it "Products")
Motoskin T-shirts
Links
Site Info
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

You will probably want to market the shirt side of the site a little more. Now that the pages have been reworked, when you do any advertising for the shirts, you can send your customers directly to t-shirts.html instead of sending them to index.html. If someone is coming to the site expecting t-shirts, you should get more sales if you send them directly to what they're looking for rather than just sending them to the main page of the site.

Hope that helps.


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## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

The idea behind my six sites is not for linkage, however that actually helps in the index ranking. But that each site is for a different area. I have my general marketing site for custom work and then I have my site that is built around the schools theme. I have another for tote bags and then 2 for retail with different client types. My tote bag one I am taking down and combining it with my marketing site. I also have a site for cats and when you state


> Really doesn't help get you bookmarked on the search engines and ranked well enough to draw customers.


I disagree. My cat site is linked to a lot of sites that deal with selling pedigree cats and the end results are outstanding. If you go to google and just plug in the words "pedigree cats" I will let you see who is in the top 5 of over 3 million. "Feline USA" this is because of my links on various cat sites. Google loves that.


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

badalou said:


> If you go to google and just plug in the words "pedigree cats" I will let you see who is in the top 5 of over 3 million.


But is that what people use to search for cat's pedigree? The key to search engines is not how you rank with specific combinations of words, but how you rank with the commonly searched words. Try "cat's pedigree" or even "cat pedigree". I would think most people will use that combination to search.


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Jasonda said:


> David,
> 
> I think you could go either way on this one. Normally I would say to split it up, but since the designs and target market are going to be very, very similar, it might be better to leave it as-is.
> 
> ...


You basically are saying exactly what I have been thinking. I am still building the t-shirt side of things, once I get everything into the shopping cart I will do a bit of house cleaning.


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Vtec44 said:


> If you change your site's design a little to include graphics for both shirts and decals, I think it will work.


I am still building the tee shirt end of things. I will be adding the custom t-shirt section as soon as the stock transfer pages are complete. Everyone from the events knows exactly what we do...its the general public that we dont see at shows I need to entertain.


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

MotoskinGraphix said:


> I am still building the tee shirt end of things. I will be adding the custom t-shirt section as soon as the stock transfer pages are complete. Everyone from the events knows exactly what we do...its the general public that we dont see at shows I need to entertain.


 
Personally, I think you're heading toward the right direction. You are already out there talking to your customers, and they already know of your company. So, providing an additional service will just improve your company's image/name with the existing customer base. Now, trying to break out of the car-crowd is another story.

Best of luck!


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Vtec44 said:


> Personally, I think you're heading toward the right direction. You are already out there talking to your customers, and they already know of your company. So, providing an additional service will just improve your company's image/name with the existing customer base. Now, trying to break out of the car-crowd is another story.
> 
> Best of luck!


Well the shirts we offer now kind of run into several different groups from the bikers to the goth, trendy, rocker, teenage angst market. Most of the custom gear is done at events and generally are car club, Scion folks, Import tuner and Drift people. Nice thing is they buy the skull shirts as well.

I think the shirt end is where we are really going to progress into the future because I enjoy it the most. We will just keep growing and see how things develope for other money marketing outlets. I would love a retail shop but really dont want the extra overhead. I might try a kiosk if I can get a reasonable rate and someone compitent enough to man it without burning their fingers off and destroying inventory.


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## Ken Styles (Mar 16, 2006)

ok I currently have 2 sites. 

One that has my t-shirt designs that I sell and another I'm creating into the "Custom" t-shirt site where I will be taking orders from customers for their own designs.

My question is: When you say "linking back and forth to eachother" should I just make a button that says "custom t-shirts" and when you click it, my other site would automatically open up? Or put the acutally URL of the other site on my first site??? and state..."if you want a custom shirt of your own design..click this link which is to our other site.".....??


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Ken Styles said:


> ok I currently have 2 sites.
> 
> One that has my t-shirt designs that I sell and another I'm creating into the "Custom" t-shirt site where I will be taking orders from customers for their own designs.
> 
> My question is: When you say "linking back and forth to eachother" should I just make a button that says "custom t-shirts" and when you click it, my other site would automatically open up? Or put the acutally URL of the other site on my first site??? and state..."if you want a custom shirt of your own design..click this link which is to our other site.".....??


Good question. If you look at Lou's cat site, he just has an add saying look at our new t-shirt business with a link directly to his t-shirt site. Now he owns both sites as you do so you could do it either way really. I would like all the shopping from two sites running through the same shopping cart and checkout.


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## badalou (Mar 19, 2006)

Most people are looking for pedigree cats.


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## Ken Styles (Mar 16, 2006)

MotoskinGraphix said:


> Good question. If you look at Lou's cat site, he just has an add saying look at our new t-shirt business with a link directly to his t-shirt site. Now he owns both sites as you do so you could do it either way really. I would like all the shopping from two sites running through the same shopping cart and checkout.


 
Yeah thats true!

I'm going to try a few differnt things and then put up my sites for a forum review again.


Lou,
I didn't realize how much of a busy person you are...lol
Take a day off...geesh...lol


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

badalou said:


> Most people are looking for pedigree cats.


Lou...basically you are running a link exchange and its easy to see why it ranks very well on google.

I am wondering why when they hit the link to your t-site they dont run into all those stock cat transfers that are available...seems like the puuurrrrfect market.


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## rainbird1099 (Jan 11, 2007)

My opinion fwiw is, I was looking for t-shirts, found them, but hey check out these cool grafix too. If you do seperate them, advertise them on eachother.


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## Ken Styles (Mar 16, 2006)

David,
On your site you have a t-shirt called "MAXIMUM
OVERDRIVE". It's freakin awesome! 
How many colors does it take to print that shirt?

Ken


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## MotoskinGraphix (Apr 28, 2006)

Ken Styles said:


> David,
> On your site you have a t-shirt called "MAXIMUM
> OVERDRIVE". It's freakin awesome!
> How many colors does it take to print that shirt?
> ...


The shirt is printed in white with halftones for dark shirts and black with halftones for lite colored shirts. Single color and a good example of what can be achieved as one color.


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## Ken Styles (Mar 16, 2006)

thats breath taking...I can't want to learn how to utilize that halftones trick


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## chiddo (Aug 28, 2006)

I agree with Jasonda , your market is very similar for both categories..... leave as it is.
Nice designs.
Do you wholesale?


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