People looking to sell guns and ammo online often start by building an inadequate website and then try to advertise on Facebook or Google AdWords only to find out that these outlets do not allow pay per click advertising on such items. While I do not necessarily agree with their policies, it is what it is.
After that they turn to someone like myself and try to find out what is involved in organic search traffic for ammo sales. It just so happens that I have a plethora of information at my fingertips on this topic.
In fact, other than evil SEO companies who will just tell you what you want to hear and take your money, I am one of 2 or 3 people out there with the deets. The icing on the cake is I am thrilled to fill you in on the real deal. I have plenty of other clients and no desire to assist those I can’t help.
You can’t afford to compete.
If you are reading this, I am about to save you a lot of time and money: you can’t afford to compete.
According to semrush (a tool I use to spy on competition), semrush estimates MinwayUSA drops $13,000 – $30,000 a month on AdWords for terms such as “hornady gs 1500 electronic scale”(if you Google that you will see one of their ads). This is just a fraction of their advertising budget.
If you don’t have $1mil sitting around to play with for 10mos or so, you’re already done. And as you compete you will find out that it only gets more expensive as time goes on.
Organic traffic FTW
Midway, according to my semrush estimate, gets 1-2mil organic visits a month. This is because they rank well. Semrush places an estimated value of that at $1,400,000.00 per month. In other words, until you can outrank them organically (which isn’t going to happen unless you undercut them for like a year), your PPC budget (which you can’t have) would cost you $1.4 million each month just to have the same amount of traffic they have.
The traffic is unreal
I happen to have the exact numbers here. I am hoarding them for myself. But I can tell you that if you rank for terms such as 22LR AMMO on the top of page 1 you are looking at around 25,000 visitors per month to that one single page. According to semrush, MidwayUSA received around 2.1 million hits in May 2016. SimilarWeb predicts their traffic was closer to 6.9 million hits. (If that is true, the equivalent PPC value of that traffic would be $4.9 million per month rather than $1.4m).
That’s outrageous!
You gotta pay to play. I have absolutely no idea how much ammunition these companies are selling. And keep in mind, they have been building their business on the web for a very long time. Whois.com data tells me MidwayUSA was established in 1997. That is eBay era.
You wouldn’t try to start an auction website now, would you?
Smart alternatives
Local traffic is out of this world. I briefly helped with content creation for a gun store recently and withing 90 days the store was getting around 80 hits per day with a basic content & SEO package. This is mind-blowing and incredibly valuable search traffic. Their employees even told me that gun sales had never been so strong before, and they had been in business for 40 years. This is because there are so many new people entering the gun market. Gun sales seem to be hitting new, record highs every day, women are getting concealed permits and teens are getting hunting licenses. People are concerned with the economy and crazy election cycles and buying more guns and ammo. I have plenty of hard evidence which proves without a doubt that they are turning to the Internet to find local guns ‘n ammo. And not everyone is searching for a gun store – many are searching for terms such as “AR-15s for sale” or “10/22 in stock”, etc.
If you have questions about selling silencers, ammunition, handguns or rifles on the Internet feel free to reach out; I have talked to gun shops all over the USA from those who supply enthusiasts to LEO suppliers. My first sale online took place in 1993.
Also feel free to comment below.
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