Do you have a Question about Internet marketing
or search engine optimization, or your website?
We'll answer your question privately
or in our next newsletter!
This Month's Question
Q: I see
that my competitor has several websites to market his business. Is it worth it to have several
websites?
A: Well, it's not a black and white
answer, it depends on several factors so let's go through them.
1)
Owning a domain name that also markets your keyword phrase is good. Does
it guarantee top position?
NO. It doesn't guarantee any position, believe me, I've tested this with several domains.
But, it's useful in the search engines (and easier for Internet viewers to remember) if
your domain name matches your product and/or service.
2)
So, with that said, the answer then would be YES, of course, it's worth it to own several
domains and marketing several websites.
3)
BUT, you must be ready for the expenses involved.
a) You'll have to have new websites created. You can use the basic layout of your existing
website although I highly recommend not to make all the websites look alike. Search engines
HATE websites that look like each other, it's too close to spamming for them.
b) You'll have to pay to purchase the domain names which, really, is very small.
c) You'll have to pay to have the websites hosted at a hosting company.
d) If you're marketing each individual website, then you'll have to pay to market each
one separately.
4)
The major corporations and almost all larger businesses do this. They purchase several
domains, have several websites, and market them all. If it's in your budget to do this,
I highly recommend it.
5)
If your business involves several different aspects, then you can use your domain names
to niche market.
For example:
Let's say your website is about jewelry. And you sell bracelets, earrings and necklaces.
You can create one website for all your jewelry.
You can create another for bracelets.
Another for earrings.
And yet another for necklaces.
Each one is marketing a niche product.
Your chances of getting more visitors increases, of course because your exposure is increased.
So, in summary, if you can manage to own and run several websites
on several domains, the answer is YES, it's very beneficial. But if this type of marketing
campaign is only going to put you into more debt then the answer is NO. Work on getting
the needed income from ONE website first, and then use some of that income to increase
your business through the use of several domains and websites.
Following are some resources that I can
personally recommend!
Esther C. Kane
Eckweb Designs, Inc.
Call To Action - one factor of Internet
Marketing is getting people TO a website. But the second factor is getting people who come to
the website to DO what you want them to do! This book at times gets into the real "techy"
part of website design but it's filled with lots of very useful information on how to create that
Call To Action you want from your website visitors!
Click the book above
to buy your copy now!
Web Copy That Sells - writing great
copy or text is not easy. Copywriters earn every penny they make! But if you're so inclined to
write your own website copy, then take the time to learn how to do it! This book covers all styles
of writing from website copy to email copy.
Click the book above
to buy your copy now!
Never Check E-Mail In The Morning -
this book was recommended to me by Mike Silverman at Silver
Web Solutions in Georgia. I love the tips in this book, heck the title is a great tip! It's
an extremely well organized easy to read book! If you're a small business owner, or a solopreneur,
you'll love it too!
Click the book above
to buy your copy now!
Marketing Your Retail Store - is a
great book for anyone who owns a storefront and wants to either get their products onto the Internet
or they want to beef up their Internet store. This book is filled with great "tactics"
on ways to gain and keep more customers. It's a great read.
Help wild birds to survive winter!
What other causes can you support? Showcase your support on your website! You'll be surprised how much
it helps!
Marketing Tips
Are You Sure?
by Esther Kane - Eckweb Designs
Are you SURE your website is working like it should?
I don't mean are the links working or is the email button working.
I mean, are your visitors doing what you want them to do when they get to your website? Are they looking
at the "buy now" button? Are they getting lost in the shopping cart? Do they have trouble
finding a product? How do you know?
My tip to you this month is to continuously create and learn from your very own focus group.
Here are some ways to create a focus group.
1) Run your website through a focus group once or twice a year.
2) Always use a different set of people in your focus group.
3) Try to include a variety of people in your focus group. Vary the age, background, gender, etc.
4) Create a series of questions for your focus group to answer but also allow them the opportunity
to give you their own thoughts.
5) Keep the list of questions as short and simple as you can while still obtaining as much information
as you can.
6 ) Use your friends as part of your focus group.
7 ) Use customers as part of your focus group. You may even want to offer them a free gift for their
service.
8 ) Use friends of friends, anyone who isn't familiar with your website is an excellent focus group
member.
The benefits of a focus group?
You'll learn SO MUCH from others as they look through your website. Their comments may help your website
to go from poor to good or from good to great or from great to fantastic!
Do you have an Internet Marketing Tip you would
like to share?
Do you have an article
that you would like
to share with us?
One of the BEST ways to market your web site is to show the Internet audience that you
KNOW your stuff!
If you would like to write an article about any of the following topics and submit it to our Newsletter,
we would love to review it for inclusion in future issues.
Our topics of interest are...
Marketing (General)
Internet Marketing
Small Business Issues
Web Design
Web Hosting
Web site Programming
If you're marketing your website on the Internet, your Valentine are your customers! That includes
your current customers and potential customers! People visiting your website are your Valentine!
So, just like you would woo your Valentine, you need to woo your customers.
How can you woo them?
Give them what they want.
Information!
Maria Velosa, author of Web Copy That Sells (see my list of recommended books below) tells it quite
plainly.
She writes, "Your website should provide the solid information that your prospect is looking
for, and it should have an editorial feel to it. Above all, it should be free of hype. Why? Because
people usually go online to find information. Few people log on saying,
'I can't wait to see ads, and I can't wait to buy stuff!' No, that usually doesn't happen."
She goes on to say..."There is a myth that the Internet is an advertising medium or one big
shopping channel. It's not."
So, instead of just listing your products or services, find out what your prospects are looking
for (through keyword research) as it relates to your products and services and then give it to them!
Here's an example: I have a client who sells Insulation, specifically Sound
Insulation.
So, what are people looking for on the Internet as far as "insulation"? I did a little
research and this is what I found:
"Where can I buy pipe insulation online?"
"Who sells roxul insulation for the home?"
"What is foam pipe insulation?"
"What is the best insulation to use to save money?"
"When to replace attic insulation?"
"Why is fiberglass good for insulation?"
"How does insulation work?"
There is an audience out there searching for the answers to these questions (and many more I have
to tell you!) so why can't YOU be the one to give them the answers?
If you think your website isn't getting enough traffic, why don't you find out what your website
is not giving? Find out what your audience is looking for and start providing them with that information.
You'll be happy you did!
Polls are a GREAT way to get to know your target audience!
Polldaddy.com offers you FREE Polls to
place on your websites or emails!
Take our poll and you'll see how it works!
If you have any additional comments or questions that you can't answer in our Poll, feel free
to contact us at eckweb@eckweb.com
Search Engine Optimization
SEO Is More Than Meta Tags
by Esther C. Kane
Last week I received 12 requests for Free Quotes. 5 of those 12 made a statement in
their emails to me that they had their meta tags "fixed" but they still weren't getting
anywhere in the search engines.
When I wrote up the quotes for them, I started off by saying I was sorry that they had obviously
had a poor experience with an SEO firm. I went on to explain that SEO services is much more than
just meta tags. The entire website, it's architecture and it's flow are very important aspects of
SEO.
So this month, I'd like to tell you what components I look for when I analyze a website. These components
essentially tell me what I, in turn, have to do to make the website search engine friendly.
How many pages are on the website?
Many people are surprised to find out that their 5 page website isn't enough to compete with their
online competitors who have 100 page websites. My rule of thumb is to optimize ONE page for ONE
keyword phrase. So, if you only have 5 pages, then you're only able to market 5 keyword phrases.
If you have 100 pages, well, you get the point.
To find out the number of pages on a website I use a sitemap tool. The best one I've found is at:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com. This then
tells me how many pages are static, how many are dynamic, if there are any pdf pages, etc.
When was the domain name purchased and when does it expire? Google's Anti Aging
Delay is very real. If a domain name was purchased just last month and the website owner is
expecting that his website is going to be in the top 3 next month, well, in MSN that may happen
but not in Google. The site owner needs to know that. He also needs to know that if he purchased
his domain name for only 1 year, that's not going to help him either. If I see that a domain name
is coming up for expiration, I always recommend in my quote that the site owner renew the domain
name for as many years as they can afford to. It's a cheap enough investment!
Does each page have it's own meta tag title?
If each page of a website is the same title, and the site owner tells me they paid for SEO services
in the past, then I know that the site was not optimized and this poor website owner was taken by
yet another Internet snake oil dealer. The absolute LEAST any SEO firm would do is to give each
website page it's very own meta tag title. Hopefully it's a title with an optimized keyword phrase
but that's another step!
Is there enough content?
4 of the 12 websites that I reviewed last week had absolutely ZERO text on several of their pages.
The pages looked nice, pretty graphics, nice menus but no text. They weren't made in Flash either.
They were just basically splash pages. I tell the website owners that search engines are just machines.
All they can do is match the words that people type into a search box with the words that are on
a website page. If there are no words on the website page, to the search engine, that page does
not exist.
I go on to say that the recommended minimum is 250 words although I have seen websites with slighly
less than that do well. I say this to the website owner because I want them to know that one sentence
is not enough to constitute "text" on a website page. Believe me, I've had my arguments
with site owners about this alot!!
How many backlinks to the website and what is their anchor text?
I used to just tell website owners how many backlinks they had to a website. In other words, how
many other websites were linked to their website. But, the most important aspect of a backlink is
the anchor text of that backlink so now I give them both. I use a tool at http://www.iwebtool.com
to gather the list of backlinks and then I use an anchor text checker at http://www.akamarketing.com/anchor-text-checker.php
to find out what phrases are being used in those backlinks.
It's good to have lots of links coming to your website but if all those links are just linking to
the site using the company name or domain name, well, it doesn't do the site much good at all.
Basically, the words used in the backlink tell the search engines (especially Google) that the website
being linked TO is about that keyword phrase. It's the equivalent of a referral. Only you don't
have to go to a Leads Group or Breakfast Meeting to get it!
What is the call to action on each page?
Last year I began incorporating this question and it's results into my quotes and my SEO practice.
My purpose is to find out what is it that the site owner wants his visitors to do at each page?
Obviously to buy or to sign up for something or to call. When I speak to the site owner they tell
me this but when I look at the website pages I don't see it.
If the site owner tells me from the home page he really wants people to call him, then why isn't
the phone number everywhere? Why is it just at the bottom in small fonts?
If the site owner tells me he wants people to view his products from his home page then why aren't
there some photos of products? Why is there just one button on the menu bar to his products page?
If the site owner tells me he wants people to sign up for his newsletter, then why do I have to
click through several pages just to get to that form? It should be everywhere!
Identifying the call to action that the site owner is looking for is very important and frankly,
if any web designer is creating any business website, they should ask the client that question up
front. Every website should have several call to actions.
Is the site indexed in the search engines and how well?
One website I reviewed last week had something like 115 pages. But Google and Yahoo had only indexed
1 page from the website and MSN indexed 3 pages. The site has been up and running for over a year
so I know it has had time to get indexed. Knowing how many pages are indexed by the search engines
tells me that the pages on the website are not being seen by the engines. In this particular case,
the entire website was inside a shopping cart program. So, all the pages were dynamic and were not
being read very well by the search engines.
There are fixes to this situation but you need to know that it exists in order to fix it.
A quick way to see what pages are indexed is to type in site:www.domain.com into Google, MSN or
Yahoo. Your result will be all the pages that are indexed in that search engine for that particular
website.
I also do this on a monthly basis to the websites that I'm already marketing just to see if there
are any pages that aren't being indexed. If they're not, then I need to go in and fix it.
Well, this is just part of the analysis of a website but I think it helps to give you an idea of
how to look at a site from an SEO perspective. I hope you found the information useful and of course,
if you have any questions about any of these, feel free to ASK
THE SEO LADY!
Esther C. Kane is owner of Eckweb Designs, Inc., an SEO firm providing
SEO services for small and home based businesses worldwide. See for yourself the affordable
seo prices available through Eckweb Designs, Inc.
Online and Offline Marketing
Tips
Not Your Usual
Marketing Tips
Not Your Usual Marketing Tips
Vol. 5, No. 2
February 5, 2007
I figure why would you want to look at my mug when you can look at Alexandria Brown’s. Alexandria
writes an e-zine about…e-zines. And it’s just one of the handful of marketing “tips”
this tipster receives virtually, virtually every week.
Welcome to another edition of Not Your Usual Marketing Tips from JDK Marketing Communications Management.
Years ago, when I wrote advertising copy at Royal Insurance, we created an ad for Royal to appear
in a trade publication representing the insurance industry for recent college grads looking to break
into the field. So I wrote the “twisty” headline: “Now that you’ve got your
degree, come get an education.” The idea being that there’s nothing like the “real-world”
know-how one can get on the job as opposed to the theory of the class room.
I’m reminded of that line as, thirty years later, I’m still learning stuff…even
as I dispense my own pearls of wisdom from this lofty seat of experience.
No doubt many of you subscribe to your own industry-related electronic newsletters, but since this
one is devoted to marketing…and, after all, regardless of your industry, you won’t get
too far without marketing…I thought I’d share these resources with you.
Ms. Brown, as noted above, writes all about e-zines – how to write them, how to use them
-- from her self-anointed website: www.EzineQueen.com
The ClickZ Network “is the largest resource of interactive marketing news, information, commentary,
advice, opinion, research, and reference in the world.” Which, for my interest, also deals
with e-mail marketing. You can subscribe to their periodic info at: www.clickz.com
Who in the Charlotte area hasn’t heard of Jeffrey Gitomer? For advice on how to score “the
sale,” subscribe to him at: www.salescaffeine.com
Perhaps my own personal favorite is the advice on a multitude of pertinent topics rendered weekly
from Robert Middleton, a West Coast marketing guru who can be reached by typing in: www.actionplan.com
Since I also get involved in publicity for clients, writing and placing press releases, I can still
learn a thing or two from Joan Stewart’s www.publicityhound.com
Last but not least is Esther Kane’s monthly newsletter which is part of her website on Internet
marketing through Search Engine Optimization (and where Not Your Usual Marketing Tips has a concurrent
home): www.theseolady.com
There you have it – not everyone in marketing, but a good enough cross-section to at least
keep yours truly “dangerous.”
In the meantime, see you the first Tuesday of next month with another postage-paid dollop of Not
Your Usual Marketing Tips.
25 ways to Add Quality
Content to Your Web Site....using ideas
for at least 25 different industries
By Robin Nobles
We’ve known for a long time that quality matters to Google. In a post Senior Google Engineer
Matt Cutts made to his blog, “quality” was mentioned several times as being important
to Google. Quality matters when it comes to content, and it matters when it comes to links.
However, building content and links doesn’t have to be painful. Web site owners tend to think
of content in a very limited way.
So, let’s open up our creative minds and think of all sorts of ways of adding quality content
to a Web site.
A few things to remember:
• You’re only confined by the boundaries you set for yourself and your Web site. Allow
yourself to think in a totally different way than you’ve thought before.
• Your Web site content should be written for your buying customers . . . not for you. Your
Web site content should not be written for the search engines. The search engines are not your target
audience.
• Think of the overall picture of your site, as if it were a living, breathing entity. After
all, Web sites should continue to grow on a constant basis and never be stale or stagnant.
Let’s Get into the Fun Stuff: Quality Content for Your Target Audience
1.A calendar of events.
This is ideal for sites like real estate sites to show upcoming open houses; book stores to promote
upcoming book signings or writers’ meetings; collectors’ sites to show meetings across
the country, etc. Be sure to allow visitors to send in their own event to be posted to the calendar.
2.Maps. Consider real
estate sites, hunting or fishing sites, camping sites, hotels, or any outdoor recreational sites
for maps. Be sure to add content at the bottom of the map that describes the map and outlines its
purpose as it relates to your site.
3.Before/after experiences.
This is perfect for products or services you’re selling where customers can write in and discuss
how this particular product or service helped them. These could turn out to be mini articles, or
use them as testimonials.
4.Pictures from your customers.
You could set up a special place where past customers could post their pictures and journal entries
on your site. This is ideal for vacation sites, recreational sites, wedding sites, baby sites, photography
studios, etc. How could you use this idea on a Halloween site? On a flower site?
5.Online coloring sheets.
Use your imagination here. If you set up some coloring sheets about your vacation property, kids
could color those sheets and post them online before their trip in their own special online area.
After the trip, their parents could post pictures and a journal of their trip. This is their “Web
site” about their trip, all hosted on your site as a perk for booking through your vacation
site. What are they going to do with this information? They’re going to tell their friends,
Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Edna, etc. They’re going to link to it. You can use this perk as
part of your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) when differentiating yourself from your competition.
You’ll be building one-way links from your past customers, plus visibility for future customers.
Win/win situation. You’ll think of many ways of adding coloring sheets (or similar creative
activities for kids) to your site, if your site is the type that would work for kids.
6. Blogs or forums certainly
add fresh content to a site.
7.Articles or new pages of
interest to your target audience. Write new content on a regular basis – once or twice
a week should be your goal.
8.An expert Q&A
on the main page of your site. Get an expert to answer questions, and post one question/answer a
week (or a day – whatever you can handle) on the main page of your site. Have past Q&A’s
in a searchable archive on your site.
9.Product reviews. If
your industry has products or software to review, consider writing candid reviews of those products.
Publish the reviews on your Web site as well as publish them in a few of the online publications.
Readers are always interested in totally candid reviews, where the writer lists the positive as
well as the negative aspects of a product. If you have a landscaping business, how could you use
this idea? What products do you, as an expert, prefer to use, and why?
10.Short tips. If your
product or service lends itself to short tips, write up a series and publish them on your Web site.
Send them out in your newsletter. Get your readers to send in tips as they use the product. Offer
a discount off additional products if they submit tips.
11.FAQ’s. FAQ’s
are content – content that your target audience wants to know. As you get questions from your
readers, add additional Q&A’s to your FAQ’s to keep them current.
12.How-to guides. People
love “how to” guides. If you sell online plumbing parts, why not have a “how to”
guide on installing a new toilet? Make it easy on your customers, and they’ll come back to
you again and again. Create a series of “how to” guides. Be The Toilet Guy on the Net.
May not sound too glamorous, but if you’re highly visible on the Net and are converting traffic
to sales, you can afford to be glamorous OFF the Net!
13.Content that solves a problem.
Why do people visit the Web? To look for information or to comparison shop. If you can solve problems
for your visitors, you’re giving them just what they’re looking for online. For example,
let’s say that you sell Oriental rugs. Your potential customer might be looking for decorating
ideas for her office. Her office is very small, and she’s trying to think of a way to add
color. Most of the wall space is taken up with windows and metal bookcases. You’ve created
a series of content that shows pictures of problems/solutions that your oriental rugs have solved,
including one with an Oriental runner. Not only does the content have pictures, it also has text
describing each problem and the corresponding solution. Your potential customer found your page
in the search engine results.
14.Historical data.
Let’s say that you sell steel pipes. What’s the history of steel pipes? Creating a page
outlining its history is quite appropriate. In fact, taking it a step further, creating pages that
compare steel to copper and other types of piping; what causes rust; how strong is steel; how valuable
steel piping really is (how steel piping is used in almost every building, etc.); how long will
steel last; and on and on and on will create a whole section of extremely valuable content to a
Web site. Here’s the catch. Is this valuable to the target audience of the steel pipe company?
Think of one target audience: vocational education classes all over the US. This would be a great
resource for them. If they linked to this site, all of them being .edu’s, wouldn’t this
be a great link popularity builder for the site? Think about that for a minute. We’re talking
about quality content and quality link building. Another example of historical data would be a hotel
on St. Simons Island. The hotel could certainly provide historical data about the island on its
Web site as well as tour information, etc. How could a site that sells mustang parts use this strategy?
A site that sells wedding dresses?
15. Interviews –
the easiest way of building content yet! Interview an expert in your industry. Send the expert a
list of questions and let the expert answer in his/her own words. Don’t change any of the
expert’s answers, except to correct misspellings or grammatical errors. Always be upfront
with the expert, and always maintain the integrity of the article and yourself. Write a series of
interview articles, and highlight them on the main page of your site.
16.Seasonal articles.
Is your industry “seasonal” in any respect? If so, seasonal articles are always extremely
popular.
17.Statistics. Offering
stats on your site is also another way of adding content to a Web site. If the stats aren’t
your own, always indicate where you’re getting them. Quote the source! How could financial
or mortgage sites use this strategy?
18.An advice column.
This can be used for a dating site, or it can be used for other sites as well. How could an SEO
site use this strategy? How could a decorating site? What about a plastic surgery site?
19.Winners of the month.
Let’s say you have a site where you sell cut flowers. Get your Web audience to send in pictures
of bouquets and arrangements they’ve made with your flowers. Post the pictures online. Pick
a winner of the month, and have that winner’s picture posted on the main page of your site.
Give the winner a $25 gift certificate.
20. Using the flower example, create
video tutorials for creating flower arrangements. Make sure you sell all of the materials
they’ll need to create the flower arrangements they can make if they follow the video tutorials.
21. Again with the flower example, have
customers send in an outline of how they created their flower arrangement, the materials
they used, as well as the pictures. Link to all of those materials in your online store. Be creative.
Can you do something similar with your own Web site in your own industry? What if you had a costume
site? An art site? Give it a few twists and use it on a hunting or fishing site.
22. Send out a monthly newsletter
offering your own tips, tips from customers, sale items, holiday ideas, the winner of the month,
etc. Encourage readers to post their ideas to the blog. Post past newsletters on your site for more
content.
23. A biography about someone’s
life, if it relates to your industry. You can see how this would work well if you have a
Civil War site or a used book store.
24. News events pertaining
to your particular industry.
25.Community-related page,
if this is a local Web site. For example, you could discuss local restaurants, little league baseball,
school openings, etc., on community-related pages or a blog.
We’ve only just begun with ideas. It all depends on the industry you’re in and the products
or services you sell. Put your creativity hat on and brainstorm.
In Conclusion . . .
Remember to think “quality” when it comes to creating content. These ideas should help
get you started.
And think about this point as well. If you start creating quality content, what is certain to follow?
Quality links. Sites will begin linking to your content, because you’re doing what you should
be doing: giving your customers what they want to see when they visit your Web site. They want to
see new and exciting “quality” information that’s updated on a constant basis.
You become the trusted source of that information.
Don’t try to take the easy way out.
Success isn’t dished out in soup lines. Success comes with hard work.
Robin Nobles conducts live SEO workshops in locations across North
America. She also teaches online SEO training. Localized SEO training is now being offered through
the Search Engine Academy.
Many designers (and SEO firms) have a great deal of difficulty
marketing Retail websites. This is mostly due to the fact that retail websites are product driven
and not information driven. And as we all know, search engines WANT information. Here's a great
article on some ways that you can work with your client to design the most search engine friendly
retail website possible. The original article can be found at: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3624819
Search Presents Challenges for Retailers
By Kevin Newcomb
January 31, 2007
Search marketing can be challenging for all online businesses, but it can be especially challenging
for online retailers, who may have hundreds or thousands of products with little unique content,
complex site structures, or other search-specific challenges.
While many retailers are engaged in search advertising campaigns and other pay-per-click advertising
efforts, some are not going beyond paid search to other complementary tactics. Two such areas where
retailers should pay special attention include shopping search and search engine optimization (SEO),
according to a new report from TrafficLeader, a search marketing consultancy and subsidiary of Marchex.
By adding these elements to the marketing mix, a retailer can boost traffic and conversions, increase
lead-generation, and improve cost efficiencies of search marketing efforts, says the "2007
Search Marketing Insights for Retailers" study.
"Many retailers are struggling to get the basics. Their Web sites are geared toward selling,
not being an information resource. But those are the kinds of sties that rank well in search engines,"
Matt McGee, SEO manager for Marchex and co-author of the report, told Search Engine Watch.
Pay Attention to Product Descriptions
Most medium to large retailers will have a database of products, with product descriptions that
are substantially the same between products, or even between competitors who sell products from
the same manufacturer. Search engines are not likely to index multiple pages with very similar content,
and without something else to differentiate a page from competitors, ranking for that product name
will be difficult, McGee said.
In fact, it's not likely that retailers want to rank for their exact product names, as found in
the product database. Most searchers are not entering a query for "Izod solid crested pique
polo," but will instead search for "Izod polo shirt," which would be a better phrase
to optimize a page for, he said.
"Product databases are not optimized for searchers. It's not hard to convince a client that
when we show them how many searches are being done for general terms, like 'polo shirt,' and how
few are being done for the specific brand name in the database," McGee said.
Streamline Site Architecture
Another challenge for some retailers is the lack of a text-based navigation system, which leaves
search engine spiders unable to access many of the products on a site. While all sites should have
a search box on their site, it cannot be the only way to navigate the site, McGee said.
"At the very least, they need to have a directory or sitemap. But since many users like to
browse instead of search for specific products, they should consider adding navigation to product
category pages as well," he said.
That's not to downplay the value of a well optimized site search. On a large-scale e-commerce site,
visitors will head for the site search box about half the time, by some accounts. In addition, many
SEO experts agree that generating reports from site search can show the retailer searcher intent
and help optimizing pages for certain keywords, both for internal site search and for external search
engines.
In addition to on-site SEO, retailers should follow the same strategies as other sites to get inbound
links to their sites -- such as by providing informational content worth linking to. This can be
done with specific sections of the retailers site, new mini-sites or blogs. Retailers should also
consider tagging their product images with relevant keywords and making them available to spiders
to they'll be found in image searches.
Consider Shopping Search
Another tactic to increase traffic and inbound links is to take advantage of shopping search engines.
By showing up in the many places shopping search engines display their results, retailers are increasing
their exposure. And since many retailers are currently not taking advantage of these listings, this
exposure will give those retailers that do a competitive advantage, if only for a short time.
The top five shopping search engines each had more than 20 million unique visitors in December
2006, according to comScore and self-reported numbers. Yahoo Shopping, and CNET topped 30 million
unique visitors, followed by PriceGrabber, Shopping.com and Shopzilla. NextTag and MSN Shopping
added a combined 24 million more unique visitors, bringing the total unique visitors to the top
7 shopping search engines to 163 million last month.
In the case of Froogle, Google is making those results more prominent in relevant searches by highlighting
product results in the OneBox area at the top of a SERP, giving those results even more weight even
than the top AdWords ads, in some cases.
And because searchers who use shopping search engines have self-selected themselves as being in
the market for your products when they find you there, these targeted visitors are more likely to
convert than general search engine visitors, writes Jake Berry, director of partner management at
Marchex, who authored the shopping search part of the report.
Combine that with the increased product detail available to searchers in a shopping search engine,
and the experience can be very helpful in turning searchers into buyers.
"The comparison shopping environment offered by shopping search engines pushes consumers further
down the purchase funnel, providing retailers with a significant opportunity to convert customers
at high rates," Berry writes.
Of course, crafting and maintaining multiple product data feeds will add a significant amount of
responsibilities to a search marketer's workload. Field requirements and listing procedures vary
by engine, prices change, and demand varies with the season. Learning which shopping search engines
work best for their particular products is the key, but overall, shopping search engines can be
worth the effort, Berry writes.
"Despite the intricacies involved in managing shopping engine campaigns, the benefits of integrating
these cost-effective, quality traffic sources generally outweigh efforts to maintain listings,"
he writes.
In the report, Berry proposes six steps for a successful shopping search campaign:
1. Start in high-margin areas
2. Actively manage CPCs across campaign, category and product
3. Measure progress against goals
4. Understand pricing, pricing changes and bidding
5. Maintain complete listings
6. Take advantage of enhanced listing opportunities
These kinds of strategies, both for SEO and shopping search, have been adopted by many large retailers
at this point, and the ideas are trickling down to medium and small retailers as well, McGee said.
That means that it can give retailers a competitive advantage today, but more importantly that it
will be a necessary part of doing business soon enough.
"You need to cover all the angles; they don't exist independently," McGee said.
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Alexandria
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