Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category
Ecommerce has made unbelievable inroads into several markets. Price comparison shoppers love the ability to surf the price comparison websites that show prices for a particular item from six or seven major bricks and mortar chains or other online retailers.
Ecommerce shop owners must do everything possible to increase and maintain business while controlling overhead to compete is this toughening field. The absolute lowest price does not always make the sale however, even though many shoppers have price as one of their two or three top criteria in shopping.
Perhaps the most underrated single thing you can do for your ecommerce business is to grow your customer loyalty. Loyal customers return because they know you have good pricing – but you have many other desirable features. These features are not just FREE shipping or BONUS gifts of a sample of new face cream.
The most important features are listed below – remember them the next time you are shopping online or returning to your favorite seller to make a purchase.
1 – Customer Service – When your customers need help or have questions they want email and telephone support, and it better be good, fast, courteous and to the point from the very beginning. Haphazard support in customer service has cost the very biggest websites in various industries as much as 50% of their return business, which could be estimated to be 50-80% of their potential volume.
2 – Involve Visitors – Shoppers want to belong to the best outfit possible, they can quickly become loyal to you if they feel good about you. Does your website make them feel good, in control, enjoying their visit, knowing they are doing good business with a good company? Your website must be attractive, interesting, even inspiring or fun or mysterious to get visitors to continue to involve themselves with you.
3 – Excellent Branding – Customers should automatically feel all the good things they know about you every time they read your emails, see your website, get letters or bills, pass on a great deal to a friend, etc. When they feel this way about your logo and designs and colors you create very good loyalty with your imagery and signage for your products and services.
4 – Know Your Market – To fully understand your own market means you can determine what they want and how they want to know about it. Learn everything about your buyers – demographics, favorite products and features, etc.
5 – Know Your Competitors – To really know your competitors you must understand their strengths and weaknesses. You must see their strategies in order to surpass them in one or all areas of your ecommerce business.
6 – After Sale – Your buyers want to understand that they are important to your business – that you realize how much they help your business. You must express this to them without boring them. Ask for their suggestions and complaints and requests. After a sale, it is the natural time to ask, but you can’t be demanding or bothersome to them to get results.
So, protect your customers. Once you have won them, make sure you keep them. It is the most cost effective way to continue making sales. And a good return customer is the best word of mouth advertising you can get. If you accomplish the above guidelines you will have a very competitive market strategy for getting and keeping ecommerce customer loyalty.
Big 12 Championship Prediction: Missouri 38 – Oklahoma 21
Uncle Arthur Is Here For You,
Arthur Browning
Paid Links and Directories Take A Lickin’
Google was possibly penalizing some of the link directories for awhile, pushing them way down in the SERPs. The penalties did not appear to be related to algorithm – possibly human selection. This certainly concerned Uncle Arthur, did it concern you?
Well some people thought that the link directories were going to catch #%@&, but they didn’t afterall. So everybody had their own theory – since Google had nothing to say about it. Uncle Arthur heard about one theory that goes like this: Google was evaluating paid links.
Based on some of the sayings by Google’s Matt Cutts we might surmise that unreviewed or poorly screened directories might be seen as mere link lists – given less credence or authority than well organized directories with quality sites of good content.
Uncle Arthur has another question about the “quality” of the websites in a directory. Websites that are loaded with spam are considered lower quality, apparently. So directories that accept these spam farms also get lower marks, apparently.
When directories request a fee is it spent upgrading the content of the directory by taking better websites – or is just a gimme the money website. Uncle Arthur heard that these gimme sites could be getting poor marks by Google too.
Even though only a fraction of the directories were penalized, they seem to have leanings to the above mentioned low mark situations. If so that means Google is getting pickier about spam related directories.
At SEOMoz an article titled “What Makes a Good Web Directory, and Why Google Penalized Dozens of Bad Ones” was written by Rand Fishkin. In that article Rand suggests Google could be marking down some of the directories that violate its guidelines. The more obvious example would be the Banner Ads for paid links from Your Directory on SEO Sites. It’s Spam about Spam time.
So like many people Uncle Arthur must wait until Google tells us what they are doing or what they want. But it looks like paid links might get downgraded to some extent for the near future, especially the Spam brokers.
Survivor of the Perfect Spam Storm,
Arthur Browning
Happy Thanksgiving to all you turkey lovers. May this be a great kickoff to your holiday season. LET THE SHOPPING BEGIN and the meaning of Christmas not escape you.
When making the choice for your Domain Name you may see the possiblity to use your major keyword(s). But is it already used in various forms? Does the URL wording need to contain something specific to your business? Maybe a combination of keywords that can’t be placed together well?
Hyphens have been used with interesting variations – and interesting results as far as SEO is concerned. The best domain name needs to have relevancy in it’s keywords but free of name trademark problems with other websites. It should also be shorter and easier to remeber if possible. Ideally seven characters or less is what you want.
Let’s say you just created a business that you want to name FrozenSeaFoods.com, but you see that name is taken. Should you use a hyphen, as such: Frozen-SeaFoods.com or should you make major name changes?
Well, your best choice is to take a name with no hyphen in it. But there are some exceptions to this situation. Here are some situations when a hyphen could be a good choice. Domain URLs with a hyphen can be a good idea if you need particular words in your domain but all domains without hyphens are bought.
Another good reason to use a hyphen is if your words appear difficult to read without a hyphen. The domain musiccave.com is harder to read than music-cave.com . Not a perfect name but it makes an example that a URL or domain should be as readable as possible.
Some people suggest using hyphens to help search engines to see your keywords better, especially good if the primary goal is SEO. But search engines can adjust to different reading and ranking styles, so it’s not a concrete rule.
Also, you should realize that some people will not remember to type the hyphen when they look for your website.
Arthur Hyphen Mr. Cool,
Arthur Browning
Uncle Arthur – The Missing Link?
I have heard the buzz on the internet – it’s not really very funny either! “Uncle Arthur is the Missing Link.”(?) That’s insulting and, well, just not true. I admit I have had some problems with links. But now I am here to put these rumors to rest. I have never been the missing link!!!! You can quote me on that.
When I work in SEO I “keep it simple stupid” – so should you. That doesn’t mean you are a missing link, does it? Well, does it? So I will tell you how Uncle Arthur handles SEO right now – let’s kick it!
SEO has been a big deal for a long time. We have all heard of the adjustments search engines make. The question of how inportant are links are is a biggie!
When webmasters compare notes on the effects of these adjustments they realize some changes are temporary – Are one-way incoming links better than reciprocal links? Well for now we can see that reciprocal links are still important for SEO. The link farms of past years are not as well rewarded but good reciprocal links from good websites with some authority and similar content are still weighed in well by the major search engines.
The comparison of notes shows that 1) a one-way link was a little better than a reciprocal link 2) the greater the authority the linking website has the more it helps 3) if the searched keyword is found in the URL of the linking website that makes the link a little stronger in the SERP also. All of these sound good to me. How does it sound to you – all you little missing links?
Also two other notes 1) a large number of links is only slightly better than a moderate number 2) age of the websites linking to you was also slightly helpful.
So to summarize for all you Missing Links – you should get your links from authoritative sites, with the keyword in the URL, one way or exchange to reciprocate, and get links on a regular basis so they add up.
Border War Prediction: Missouri 37 – Kansas 20
The Linkmeister,
Uncle Arthur Browning
Search engine rankings change a lot, sometimes unexpectedly – but nobody wants to leave the top 10 for the #46 spot. Uncle Arthur is here to tell you that this is a bad sign. It depends how long the change lasts, and what you can do about it. You need to learn why your webpage dropped so much in the rankings before you can get a hold of the situation. And then maybe you can prevent these drops from happening. Uncle Arthur will give you the Big 6 Six Reasons for Drops In Search Rankings.
1) Spam Damage – The search engines hate spam and they associate any cloaking, hidden text, doorway pages or other spam-like elements to spam. Make extra sure you do not use these types of techniques – just take them off the pages now.
2) Technical Difficulties – A server with problems can be a reason for a drop in ranking. If your website is not available or is very slow the search engine bots will not give your web pages good rankings – they don’t know your webpages. If your website shows the correct web page in the web browser but your host gives the error code you won’t get indexed either. Make sure you have a quality server with no downtime and also check the HTTP status code that your website shows.
3) Algorithm Changes – Search engines change their algorithms periodically to test and to upgrade their search abilities. A change can cause your website to move up or down. After a week if the ranking stays below your usual ranking then you will have to find out from other webmasters what adjustments to the algorithms need to be made. You should change your optimization to get your website back up to rank.
4) Website Changes – Webpages need to change occasionally. If changes are small there should be no big problem. However a redesign of your website or adding new keywords on a page might lower your rank for a while on the SERPs. Google has a mechanism specifically for changed web pages. It gives a low ranking temporarily before it makes a complete measure of your page by its algorithm. Do not change any of your webpages that have high SERP ranking unless necessary.
5) Changes in Links – Well established websites with plenty of inbound links are not affected by loss of a few links. If you have a larger percentage of paid links that are missing when the bot comes to visit then this can cause a significant drop. Major changes in linking structure of a webpage can drop your rank too. If you do use a lot of paid links you should also try to get inbound links with more duration. Continually adding links is necessary to maintain good rankings. Without new links your website will slide gradually down the rankings.
6) Changes in Competitors – Your competitors have webpages that can pass you in the rankingss if they are better optimized and get better links. Your competitors use the same keywords as you. You must write better content and
get better links than they do or it’s only a matter of time.
Every website has significant ranking drops from time to time. Don’t panic, get even, then pass your competitors. Find out the reason for your drop and work on a plan to fix your rank.
You Light Up My Life,
Arthur Browning
Search Engine Optimization is important as we all know. If you want to make sure that you are fully search engine optimized then read on and let Uncle Arthur do his SEO utmost to pound it into your brain.
Do your web pages load quickly? Or do you see some gigantic Flash file sucking your computer under. Remember, not everyone wants so-so entertainment that takes up a lot of time, they definitely want to get into your content or products however. Search spiders will leave if they can’t get into your pages quickly.
Do you want to hire an SEO expert to make your page go high on the SERPs? I have a few articles on that here at WTB. If you read them you will remember that nobody can guarantee top rank in Google for any keyword that matters if there is a competitive situation for that keyword.
Are you doing your keyword homework? Make sure you have your keyword as a part of your title and in TITLE tags, and use your page keyword in H1 tags as the main heading. Use your keyword as part of the H2 sub-heading, at least once in the first 100 characters, again in the last paragraph and once for every 400 words in your text on that page.
Are you doing your linking homework? If you have different keywords on different pages then get links for each individual page’s keywords. If those links come from sources that are also strong for that particular keyword, then all the better. Sounds simple, but these are the main points of SEO.
Simplifying the Absurd,
Arthur Bowning
Everybody wants Google! They want those SERPs to show their website HIGH on the list. Well, Google is available and has very open eyes to anyone who writes the right kind of invitation. – - Are you, uh, writing the right kind of invitation? Uncle Arthur better explain here.
Google wants you to make it easy for them to see what your website and content have in common with any particular search, and the words in that search. So, you must be sensitive to this and make the right efforts to show them. Here’s five good ways to get your webpages HIGH on Google’s SERPs:
1) Design your website, or redesign if necessary, so that spiders can easily and quickly find the important parts of your site and content. Your code lets spiders set priorities for your content. Example: If the navigation is read before the content then a spider gives navigation the priority. You ideally want your important content to be written first in the code, before less important parts of any page.
2) Optimize all of your content. In short this means three things – formatting of your content, keyword density, the webpages’ relevance. Keyword density is essentially the number of times the keywords are used on your page relative to the total number of words on the page. You need to maintain 3-5% keyword density – use keywords 3-5 times per hundred words. Formatting your content means getting your content into header tags, using bold and italics in anchor text to increase the weight this text carries. Overall site relevancy, means that if your entire site is about the keywords you use then it’s easier to get rank for those keywords.
3) Link Baiting is essentially the ways to get incoming links for your website. A blog that is updates with links to your relevant content is a very good method. You can also offer tools, quizzes, contests, jokes or quotes, stories or cartoons – any way to get someone else to link to your website. Links can be built to your internal pages, not just your homepage to increase your overall website strength as well as individual page rank. Link baiting is an ongoing process to keep your rankings high or get them higher.
4) Link Building, usually of reciprocal links, occasionally one way incoming links, still helps. There is good discussion as to how much it helps now and in the future. Using different techniques is the key to balance and steady benefit from different types of links. Three popular and generally effective methods are: directory submissions, submitting articles, and submitting to search engines. Link exchanges are also effective, especially if the content of the two websites is similar. Leaving messages and comments at forums and blogs with your link in the message or signature box is another good way.
5) Social Media is a way to leave links and be seen as associated with like websites which increases your relevancy as well as establishes your website as a part of a personalizing trend that is growing as developed and planned by Google. As the Google algorithm evolves toward individual searcher-centered relevance the similar websites and similar searchers will form a trend of personalized search – with you included in those closest to your content.
See, that wasn’t so hard after all. Uncle Arthur wants to encourage you to do your best with these five good ways to
get your Google.
The Big Lebovsky!
Arthur Browning
If you build up your links in the best ways you can turn your anchor texts into Search Engine bot candy. And you certainly can’t ignore those bots – or spiders as I like to call them. So let Uncle Arthur give you the bottom line.
Sure you have to put in some time and effort – so pay attention – to get the best payoff. Anchor texts give the spiders what they want, so do it right and try not to disappoint – for your sake. To know what you need to put into your texts, titles and tags you need to know your keywords and what your direct competition is doing in that very same work.
You can measure the opposition by running their URLs through Google link search, MSN site explorer or Yahoo! Site Explorer. Make sure your semantics are good with complete agreement for the texts of your target pages. Use the major search engines to research competitors links – especially Google.
TouchGraph has a browser-based utility that is written in Java that shows the relationships existing between sites as seen by Google. And TouchGraph can look for relationships based on keywords or URLs. (This is a must for all you visual learners, like Uncle Arthur – you’ll love it.)
Here is what the first image for Web Templates Blog looks like:
Greg Boser also has a tool called Tattler available, for seeing links from Yahoo’s Site Explorer into a spreadsheet format. This utility I cannot speak for since he no longer has a demo that I could find on his site. It may cost money to try it out now.
There are a lot of other articles on building links too – just search this site for “links.” If you use all these tips then over time you will accumulate a lot of good links. And then both you and the spiders will be happy.
Linking With a Future,
Arthur Browning
New websites need a little help to get noticed when they first go online. Here are a few tips to get you started. These tips address new readers, feeds and seo for starters. Use these and you will definitely get noticed.
Blogging can get you noticed in several ways. First of all it mentions your new website, it provides links to your new website, and it broadcasts your content full of keywords. As a blogger you should leave comments on other like content blogs with your new website’s name and links in the comments(!)
Press releases can be sent to any and all online news publications that can handle your content. It makes those publications aware that you are out there, and if they print your releases it lets all of their readers catch your new website.
Directory submission gets you listed into a directory for searchers, it puts links to your new website out there, and if it’s a good directory it can make immediate traffic for your well categorized content or products.
Article submission gets your ideas read, leaves links to your new website, lets people know of your expertise in your specific content area, and builds SEO.
Newsletters work great for people who want to relate to all of your new website’s occurrences and special events. This helps build readership, reader involvement and traffic.
Also – Biggie! Make sure you submit your website to search engines. Don’t do this until your website is complete and well search optimized with keywords, tags, titles, etc. Submit to the big three – Google, Yahoo! and MSN first. Then as time permits submit to other search engines especially if they are specialized or niche related searches.
While these are just a few of the ways to get your new website noticed, they are very effective ways. And these are possibly the most productive ways of getting noticed for the amount of time and effort that is involved in each of the ways in this phenomenal list.
Shortcut to Recognition,
Arthur Browning
What’s So Great About Digg? Read This!
I have dabbled a bit here and there with social networking and feeds and various article rating systems. I have not always been dazzled by these systems for one reason or another. Sometimes they are too complicated, sometimes the results and participation are either artificial or too inbred to actually be social, sometimes there’s too much politics, sometimes they just aren’t that much help for my interests or my websites.
Be that as it may, these systems do serve some purposes, some serve them very well. One large and sometimes controversial system is Digg.com. Members refer a “good” article to other members on a certain topic for certain key words, other members “Digg” it or vote on it as to its interest, relevancy or quality of content.
This system works a lot of the time from what I can see. There have been some social “ganging” or clique Digging of votes, and there have been a few articles about the resulting problems. But overall, Digg serves its purposes, and it has a lot of members and readers who do not submit articles or Digg on them.
People who submit the articles, and the people who wrote those articles can get a lot of attention if an article gets adequately Dugg to boost it to prominence. This attention may be parlayed into increased traffic for the article, Digg member name recognition, author name recognition, publishing website name recognition and resulting prominence, contracts, sales, etc.
What does it take to become a success on Digg? How does it feel to be a success at Digg? Who are the biggies at Digg? Here’s an article with some first class answers to these and other questions about Digg – “HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE POPULAR ON DIGG?,” appearing on the DesignInterviews Blog and written by Helen Walker. Helen interviews five very successful Digg members:
Jonathan Snook – http://snook.ca/
Mark Boulton – http://markboulton.co.uk/
Jonathan Nicon - http://f6design.com/
Alex Griffioen – http://www.oscaralexander.com/
Joe Dolson – http://www.joedolson.com/
She has some great responses to some great questions. What you can learn from this article? Better read it.
Digg Me?
Arthur Browning
