New member intro

[Lily]

Hello,

I have been a passionate flower fan my entire life: planning landscapes and flowerbeds, growing flowers from seeds, bulbs, propagation, collecting, sharing. In winter I could be found poring over each new year’s seed catalogs like winter “wish books” until they were dog-eared.

So when I began my first website earlier this year, I knew it was going to be about flowers. I decided that my focus will be helping people send the best flowers they can, beginning with their patronage of a real brick-n-mortar florist shop. To that end, each page of my site will soon encourage visitors to “find a local florist” from a searchable database I am compiling.

Should you visit my site you may notice the complete absence of Google ads, as order-gatherers predominate in PPC advertising. Promoting them is contrary to the spirit of my site.

From my research at http://floristdetective.com/ as well as study of four years’ back issues of Florist Review Magazine to learn about florists’ issues, I am aware of the disreputable tactics of order-gatherers. I wish to contribute my support for an FTC investigation into their dishonest tactics.

Josie Mayes a.k.a. “Lily”
www.send-great-flowers.com

 

[Rhonda]

I have a slight problem with the word "cheap" used both in your site header and in the text body:

Save up to 33% on every order when you send flowers freshly created and delivered by a local florist. Send flowers cheap....and a bouquet as big as your heart!

 

[Lily]

"cheap" flowers

Hi Rhonda,

Thank you for your message.

Yes, no one likes the word "cheap" when applied to their products. But the purpose of a web page is to be found by searchers, using the words they actually use (not the ones we would prefer they use).

That phrase "send flowers cheap" is one of the most frequently used search phrases used by people looking to send flowers. (wordtracker.com is one of many keyword research tools which reveals the words people really use to search for things)

As an experiment, Google the phrase "send flowers cheap" and you will find more than two million web pages have been specifically optimized for that specific phrase...with good reason: those words are typed day in and day out, over and over, every day of the year by people looking to buy flowers.

Why? Because people who would not dream of uttering the word "cheap" to describe something they want to buy will sit at their computers and type "send flowers cheap" into the search box for Mothers Day. No one is looking, you see

Regards,
Josie