Avatoon Update: How We Focused On SEO And Plan To Launch A New Website
This is a follow up story for Avatoon. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 3 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
My name is Zoltan Szilagyi, and we are running a website that is offering the service of artists to create cartoon avatars based on a picture the client uploads. This is available in different styles and is not limited to humans, we draw pets as well.
Our main product would be the cartoon avatar drawn in the original style we came up with. Most of the sales are for companies who order them by the hundreds, but there are quite a lot of individual orders as well.
As time passed the artists became more proficient in drawing these, so we could ramp up production, we spent a lot on SEO to increase the number of new clients, and we have discounts for returning clients.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?
Our business got a lot more returning clients than we did before. As companies are hiring new employees, they keep coming back so we can add them to the roster. Because of this, we have a more steady influx of orders. We also keep improving our website, keeping it up to date visually, and adding new features. We recently managed to add the option of payment via credit card which was a great boost. We also made the ordering process more intuitive and added customization options to our service. Thanks to this the average we get for a single avatar increased significantly.
Our numbers stayed the same since last time, but we are considering increasing our numbers in the near future.
We implemented a new style that is more simple, faster to draw, and more affordable, and also added the option of drawing pets.
We tried posting on Instagram, dribble, Behance, Pinterest but these were not worth the effort we put into it, so we are sticking to SEO which worked out the best so far.
We are offering discounts for our returning customers and keep the quality of our service consistent. This seems to be working since we have returning customers who’ve been with us since day one.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
The value of being picked up, by a popular website was huge. We launched another website, with top-quality resources for graphic designers, created an email campaign, and worked a lot on the SEO, but that website never really got too far. We suspect it would’ve been the same story for avatoon.net as well if we were not picked as one of the top products on the product hunt. Most of our initial clients came from there.
Other than this and learning how to build a cabin in the woods, nothing comes to mind.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
We are working on launching yet another website, with avatars not drawn, but modeled using a 3D program. This would be made by an artist as well, we already have a few prototypes ready.
We are also trying to shift from offering a service to offering a product. Since everything we make is made by hand there is a limit to how many we can make, and how fast we can make these drawings.
We’ve been working on a way to make avatars either generated automatically or create a platform where users can create their own. The challenge here is that we want the quality of these to be on par with what an artist would create, well above what competitors offer. This is a very difficult task to do, but we are making progress.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
When the time comes, we will be looking to hire someone locally.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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