Shopster's Dropshippers, eCommerce, and Selling Online Blog

Good service = recurring clients

No matter what product or service you are selling in your online store, one of the things that you need in order to thrive is to have as many recurring clients as possible.

This is true for all products. Even the single most expensive product that the average person will ever buy – real property like a house or a condominium – can still have repeat business in the future. Realtors know that families can either go up in life and seek bigger and better homes, or downscale their lifestyle by going for something smaller.

This is true for cars. The brand new car you have today will be an oldie in five or six years. You will probably want a new one if you have the means.

This is true even for private planes or yachts. If you’ve sold a plane to a sheik or business magnate, chances are that buyer will want to see what new models are available somewhere down the road.

Whatever your online site sells, you can sell to your present clients again. Only if you provide them with the kind of service that they want.

After-sales service should never be underestimated. You can contact your buyer shortly after the sale just to ask if he or she is happy with what was purchased from your online store. If the customer is unhappy, find out why and see if there’s anything you can do to correct the situation.

If you have a satisfied customer, on the other hand, say that you are happy to serve, and then send him or her occasional communications when you have a new product or service he may be interested in. Don’t go overboard. No need for hard sell. Just be friendly and informative. You will find that your good service will bring financial rewards. Always.

 

 

Tweaking your online store

There are many stores that started out specializing in one line of products only to shift their specialization to another line.

The change can be gradual or it can be sudden. It all depends on the market being served by the store. This is true for not only physical brick-and-mortar stores, but online stores as well.

A store can be selling shoes, bags, belts and other leather goods for men and women, but shift to men only or women only products. Alternatively, a similar type of store can suddenly find a huge demand for bags, in which case more and more space is devoted to this one product until eventually the store becomes known for a wide range of leather bags.

The leather bag store can then evolve to a complete line of bags of all sizes and all kinds of materials.

The situation can also happen to food, for example. Or clothes, or jewelry, or electronics. In fact, it can happen to any kind of store. You can get an indication of where to take your store from the patterns that emerge in your first months or even years of existence. The important thing is to be ready to make that move in a hurry, before you lose your competitive advantage. Once you see a pattern emerging, start looking around for suppliers or start looking for exclusive designs that only your store will carry. You can either count on your current supplier, or shop around for additional ones.

 

 

Starting Out

If you are a relatively new entrepreneur, you may be swayed by the get-rich-quick schemes found all over the internet. So many con artists claim that they know the “secrets” of making millions online. Some may actually be swimming in dough, but others are just scheming to fool honest folk whom they consider gullible.

Mostly, they want you to shell out your hard-earned cash for their secrets. These will be nothing more than advice that you have heard before, broad or vague generalities about working hard or working smart.

Do not waste your time or money on the trash they so generously want to share with you, for a price. Even if it is just a few dollars, they work on the law of averages. The more people they fool, the more money they make.

What you want to do is put up a business that earns you decent profits, more than the regular pay cheque that you get by being employed. Realistically, you want your online store to generate income at the shortest time possible.

At the start, the profits will only trickle in. Expecting to be swamped with orders is a nice dream, but in the real world it takes time to generate business, particularly for start-ups.

Just like brick and mortar stores, some online businesses will make money, some will not. Start at the basics. You must know something about the line of business you want to enter. If you are an artist, no one expects you to suddenly open a high-end garage or a travel agency. However, if you were to set up an art gallery, then you are on the right track. In addition, no, you will not sell works by Picasso. However, you will probably sell affordable works by rising young artists. In addition, that is a good thing, isn’t it?

 

 

Don’t let the economy get you down

Throughout much of the developed world, the state of the economy has been pretty much in the doldrums ever since the global economic meltdown of three years ago.

Retailers such as yourself and wholesalers such as your drop shippers feel the pinch, although there are enough positive signs that a recovery is underway.

It is easy enough to surrender to the general negative feeling that persists in many industries, retail and wholesale included. However, if you allow those negative feelings to grab hold of you, your chances of moving forward become, for all intents, non-existent.

Your drop shippers are aware of this. Remember that they do have a different vantage point from you. You and your business are at ground level, but your drop shippers see things from a higher perspective.

If the economy were going downhill as a few doomsayers say, then your drop shippers would have shut down their operations a long time ago. If, on the other hand, they see that a full-blown recovery is approaching, they will likely stay in business at all cost.

So what do you see? Are your drop shippers falling like dominos? Or are they standing tall, taking the licks as they come, and planning for better times ahead?

Since all drop shippers have spent much larger sums than you to put up their business, the fact that they are still around should tell you what’s ahead.  When a nation’s economy falls, the next sure thing to happen is for that same economy to rise. Drop shippers are expecting a major economic rebound, and they want nothing more than to bring their retailers up with them when it does. That would include you!

 

 

Early failures pave the way for eventual success

For new and inexperienced entrepreneurs, selling online can seem like a daunting line of work. When business does not do as well as they had expected in the first few weeks and months, giving up are an easy option. They will tell themselves, this is not for me.

There are countless success stories of ordinary men and women raking in big bucks through online selling. Almost all of them would have stumbled a few times before they found the right formula for their success. Sure, a desire to succeed is necessary, but so is a commitment to the new business.

It will not be easy, but selling online should not be impossibly hard either. All it takes is a little luck and a lot of hard work. There are bound to be some early failures, but this is true for most businesses that eventually made it big. Some marketing gurus say there is no such thing as luck in business. One popular saying goes thus: “Luck? I make my luck!”

In other words, working hard while working online will bring together all the resources your way that will result in your considering yourself “lucky.”

Make your luck. Do not be afraid to fail. Each failure is a valuable lesson that you can avoid next time. If you learn your lessons from your past failures, you will no longer repeat them in the future. All these sound like the slogans in the inspirational posters you can buy in any bookstore or gift shop. They also happen to be true. 

 

Create Your Own Holiday Sales

Every owner of every online store knows that he or she is in a daily fight for market share and customer loyalty.

They resort to conventional marketing gimmicks such as holiday sales, which may not always work. Not when everyone else is doing the same thing. Thus, Christmas, Valentine’s, Mother’s Day and all similar holidays see practically all online stores having special sales.

But what if you had your own special day/days when you give discounts and freebies to new and old customers?

One of the old, classic comic strips of the past – Li’l Abner – had its Sadie Hawkins Day, when women were allowed to publicly run after men. It seems like a quaint idea now, which is why the comic strip has faded into history, but the idea is not bad. Even a non-holiday like Ground Hog’s Day is celebrated in some rural areas, and was even made into a movie.

What sort of holidays can you create?

Use your imagination. Are you a Trekkie perhaps? Then you can have a Captain Kirk or Spock Day.  You like old movies? How about a Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne Day? You can have it on their actual birthdays, or when they passed away.

This week saw a Christian cult insisting that May 21 is when the world ends. You can have a World Will Not End on (choose your date) Day.

The important thing is for your invented holiday to be done in the spirit of fun, with tongue firmly in cheek.. It also gives you a good reason to have a special sale on your online store, with the goal of bringing in more customers.

 

Create Your Own Holiday Sales

Every owner of every online store knows that he or she is in a daily fight for market share and customer loyalty.

They resort to conventional marketing gimmicks such as holiday sales, which may not always work. Not when everyone else is doing the same thing. Thus, Christmas, Valentine’s, Mother’s Day and all similar holidays see practically all online stores having special sales.

But what if you had your own special day/days when you give discounts and freebies to new and old customers?

One of the old, classic comic strips of the past – Li’l Abner – had its Sadie Hawkins Day, when women were allowed to publicly run after men. It seems like a quaint idea now, which is why the comic strip has faded into history, but the idea is not bad. Even a non-holiday like Ground Hog’s Day is celebrated in some rural areas, and was even made into a movie.

What sort of holidays can you create?

Use your imagination. Are you a Trekkie perhaps? Then you can have a Captain Kirk or Spock Day.  You like old movies? How about a Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne Day? You can have it on their actual birthdays, or when they passed away.

This week saw a Christian cult insisting that May 21 is when the world ends. You can have a World Will Not End on (choose your date) Day.

The important thing is for your invented holiday to be done in the spirit of fun, with tongue firmly in cheek.. It also gives you a good reason to have a special sale on your online store, with the goal of bringing in more customers.

 

Holding an auction to boost sales

Everyone knows eBay. This online company’s formula for success is as simple as it is effective. Post a product on the site and have people bid on that product. The bidding is for a fixed time frame, so any interested party has up to the deadline to decide if he or she really wants that product and at what price.

The owner of the product can also specify how much he wants so if anyone really wants that item, no bidding is necessary. The buyer agrees to pay the asking price. The deal is sealed, payment is made and delivery is arranged.

There have been attempts to imitate the eBay formula to varying degrees of success.

Your online store can copy the formula without having to be a poor man’s version of eBay. You simply select one or two products of the week or month, and open the door to bidders. If, for example, you sell men’s clothes, you can have bids for the extra large leather jackets you have in your inventory for one month, and then move to pastel colored golf shirts the next, then on to silk neckties the following month.

If your online store sells women’s shoes and handbags, you can have bids on single items only such as that last small pair of red pumps. If you have single items up for bids, your turnover could be faster than if you offered several similar items.

In addition, adding an interesting detail can make an ordinary product more attractive. If the basketball shoes you sell are the same kind that President Barack Obama or Tom Hanks uses when he plays, then say so. Such details can be enough to clinch a sale sometimes.

 

Online Marketing Moves that Can Save Your Business

The thing with online marketing strategies is that it changes quickly and regularly depending on factors such as social media trends. In order to keep your business profiting well, you should be up-to-date regarding the online marketing tips that will move you ahead of your competitors. You should have online store or connectivity. If you are looking for new strategies to improve your performance in the middle of 2011, here are some of them:

Take advantage of the Like button on Facebook

If you don’t have the Like button on your website yet, then you are seriously not keeping up with the game. If you think that social media is only for teens who don’t have anything to do, then better change your thinking. The more likes you get, the more visibility you will have to the millions of people logging on Facebook everyday. While you are at it, better use the other applications that Facebook has been cooking up while you were still living under the rock until recently.

Use videos to the hilt

Videos are great marketing tools in which you have total control on how you want to present your products and services. You need not worry about your video getting lost in the multitude. Google search results now include lots of videos and they often show up higher than paid and organic results.

Your website should be tech friendly

Given the number of people using iPhones, iPads, and Android devices, it’s foolish to own a website that does not support these gadgets. Most people access the web through their mobile devices so just imagine the opportunity and exposure wasted if your website can’t be accessed through hand-held devices.

 

 

 

How to Give Your Man a Makeover

Face it. Most men do not have a clue about what is sexy and what is pure in the sexy looks department. In particular, the undies they wear almost always leave something to be desired.

Guys who served in the armed forces seem to be stuck, forever wearing those boxer shorts with drawstrings. Other guys never outgrew the plain white briefs, the kind that they had when they first started wearing underwear.

Then there are those guys who may not be geeks, but who still wear loose boxers with such themes as super heroes, Star Wars or Star Trek, or – gasp! – Cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck.

Besides the inappropriate undies, some men still insist on wearing white socks. This can get particularly bad when he has stripped naked save for the silly socks.

Sometimes it is so bad that the woman would rather they keep their clothes on, even during sex.

There is a plus side to the sad state of men who wear awful undies. Most men also like receiving unexpected gifts, underwear included. In addition, since undies are affordable, we women do not need a special occasion to give the hapless men in our lives the kind of gifts that they will appreciate.

You can even make a special occasion out of the gift. Tell him a few hours before that you just bought him some sexy underwear, but since you do not know if they will fit, you have to be the one to put them on him. Just to try them out, you understand.

One the two of you are alone, then you have to do the honours of pulling down his pants, then his blah undies. Then you put on the new pair of men’s thongs, or whatever it is that you want to see him in. If you bought several pairs, then he has to try them out one by one.

Of course, they fit. All you had to do before ordering them was to get his belt size. Or peek at any of his old briefs or shorts, which will usually state the size.

If you bought him three pairs, then you have to strip him three times. On the last try, tell him to show his appreciation for the terrific gift you just gave him. He should have a neat woodier after all the fittings. Now prepare to be rewarded for your kindness.

 

Great SEO Copywriting Tips for Link Building

There are many techniques that link builders use to garner more links, but not all of them use copywriting for regulating content. Don’t know how to do it? Consider the following tips:

Make content memorable for those who skim

Author Steve Krug got it right when he said, “We don’t read pages. We scan them” when it comes to website usability. You should use layout, images, and language that will stand out and get noticed by power skimmers. We’re not saying that you should you abandon all efforts in making your content pretty and detailed, but content should not look like it belongs to an encyclopedia. In short, do not write Wikipedia-style content.

Take advantage of headline formulas

Take your cue from newspapers and magazines when it comes writing headlines. Catchy headlines grab readers’ attention. This should work for your website as well. The classic “who, what, and why” formula never fails.

Use numbers

Numbers make content look more relevant. Headlines with numbers grab the attention of readers. It makes users want to click on your link and it also makes your copy more organized and attractive.

Do not use halfway words

Using words like perhaps, maybe, possibly, might, or try won’t do wonders for your content. Users are more attracted to power words such as free, guarantee, simple, and quick. Weak and tentative terms should not be included in your vocabulary list.

Use sub-headlines

Users want their content organized and easy to read, and this is why you should use sub-headlines. This is imperative especially if your content is longer than 400 words.

Push vs Pull Method

In marketing your online store to your target consumers, you have two choices. One is to reach out to them through various means. This is sometimes referred to as the Push Method. The other option is to do everything to make them come to you, also known as the Pull Method.

There are distinct advantages to either way of bringing in paying customers. With the Push Method, you have to go out and aggressively introduce your site and its products and/or services to your would-be customers. You do this through such means as linking up with other sites, having stickers, flyers and posters made giving the name of your site and posting and distributing these all over town, soliciting the aid of your friends and relatives to tell their own networks to head to your site. In other words, just like the field-based salesmen of old, you go out and sell, sell, sell.

The Pull Method, on the other hand, is equivalent to having a store with various sales gimmicks, tons of flash to make the public take notice, and a lot of enticements once they’ve entered your facility. So instead of you going out and selling, it is you luring the buyers to come to you. Car showrooms do this frequently by having festive atmospheres with balloons and barkers, free food, carnival rides for kids, live entertainment, etc. They also resort to newspaper ads and TV and radio commercials.

So you either go out to sell, or pull them in to sell. Done properly, either of the two methods works. You can apply one or try a combination of both. Whatever you choose, the point is to sell a lot of your products or services.

Creating SEO-friendly Blog URLs

Google’s recent Farmer update has a lot of people worried about their rankings and the number of visitors they get on a daily basis. While Google is really out to get those content and link farms that serve up nothing but junk to the general public, we’re sure you’ll be safe if you’ve been heeding our SEO and online marketing advice on this blog.

The main point is to create unique, relevant content for your customers. One way to do this is to write your own copy for your online store. Create a welcome message on your index page, target broad keywords in your category pages and re-write what you get from manufacturers and suppliers on the product pages.

As we’ve said several times before, it is always a good idea to run a blog. Here, you can talk about anything from industry trends to the products that you sell. If you have specific care instructions, you should also do posts about that. Open it up as a forum for your existing and potential customers to communicate with you.

Aside from all that content work, we’d also like to introduce a new concept to you: creating SEO-friendly URLs. This can be easily done by changing the permalink structure of your blog. How you go about it would depend on your blog platform. We find it easy to do with WordPress.

To do this:

1. Get the latest version of Wordpress
2. Log-in to the Dashboard
3. On the left side, click on Settings>Permalinks
4. Your default would usually be just a page number. Click on the radio button next to “Custom Structure” and type in: /%category%/%postname%/

Depending on your template’s write access, once you hit save this should automatically change your URL structure. In some instances, you will be required to change the .htaccess file of your blog. You can get this from the root of your blog folder. The code that will need to go in there will be generated by WordPress once you type in your preferred permalink structure.

For other blogging platforms that do not have the admin panel for changing the permalinks, you can do so directly using the .htaccess file or via a mod_rewrite function, both would require a little bit of coding knowledge.

Changing the permalink is just half the battle. If you want your URLs to be optimized for your target keywords, you need to add those to your categories. The new structure presented about will pull out details from your categories.

Even more important than that, you also need to optimize your post titles. Doing so won’t just be good SEO for your URLs but also for the post itself.

Happy blogging!

Optimizing Product Images

The product images in your online store can add so much value for your site but you’re probably missing out on its ability to attract the right audience and to convert them into buyers. Don’t worry, you’re not the first one who didn’t realize it’s true worth.

Let’s start with the SEO value of your images. If you go to Google today, you’ll notice that left side of the topmost portion has several links: web, images, videos, maps, news, shopping and more. These are the different types of search you can do within Google. Images play an important role in the search world. In fact, images actually appear even in the web searches.

With that, spending the time to properly optimize your product images can mean additional quality visitors to your website. Here are some tips to help you get on the right path to optimized images:

• Limit the file size – If you look at the overall size of your webpage, you may be surprised to find that your individual images take the bulk of that size. Use a photo editing software likeAdobe  Photoshop to get the best quality at the smallest file size. This will improve the downloading of your web pages.
• Use good quality images – This work towards your conversion goals. In most cases, a buyer would want to see what the product looks like. As a web merchant, you are already at a disadvantage with the local stores given your target audience won’t get to “feel” the product as they have no physical access to it, don’t make matters worse by not having the right pictures in your site for your products.
• Put it in context – Any other merchant can get a product image from the manufacturer. If you want to go the extra mile of differentiating your store from the rest, use the item in context and take a picture. For instance, show how you can use a pair of shorts by having a real person model it. It may sound silly, but it can actually improve your conversions.
• Use your alt tags – Aside from improving accessibility for disable web users, alt tags are an additional area of text that search engines crawl. A fair warning, do not use this area for overstuffing with keywords or any form of spamming as you may get penalized by search engines.
• There’s strength in numbers – If you are able to provide more than one image, go for it. Show the product in different angles and in different types of lighting. A gallery of photos is always better appreciated than the single hero shot.
• Rename your image files - Don't use just random numbers as your file name for your image. Try to use the proper keywords when renaming your file, such that it isn't just searchable via the alt tags but by the actual file name as well.

Happy selling!

 

 

Targeting Local Traffic for Your Online Stores

With the internet and ecommerce, the world truly is your oyster. However, there is still a good amount of sales you can squeeze from local visitors. As such, targeting local traffic is also a good idea for online merchants, especially those that have local stores or limited delivery capability.

If we are to take the assumption that you do have a local store and your online presence only complements your in-store sales as an additional distribution channel, then let’s start with the basic offline-online marketing tandem. Our first piece of advice is to add your online store URL to your marketing materials – whether these be posters, business cards or brochures – having real people see your website address written down somewhere can already be a good way to drive local traffic to your online store.

Next, it’s also a good idea to get your business in the yellow pages. Here, we’re talking about that big, heavy book collecting dust somewhere near your phone as well as the online version of the business directory.

Getting your physical address online is also one way to localize the traffic visiting your online store. One of the best ways to do this today is to use Google’s tools, namely Google Maps and Google Places. Maps can be added to your own online store and is also searchable on the internet, while Google Places allows you to include more details about your business and even create coupons for your site.

Then there’s ccTLD and local hosting as even more options to target your local market. You can also use Webmaster Tools to limit your targets for your domain. After you’re done with all the technical stuff, it’s time to ensure that all your campaigns are aligned and cater to the right market. If you are targeting more than one specific market, then it would be best to run separate campaigns for each one. This piece of advice is particularly useful for pay per click advertising. You can even go as far as adding the country name in your ads to increase clickthroughs and filter the clickers to just those with interest in buying within the specific country.

Be conscious of the local targeting even with your promotions and banner ads. For instance, do not send out a promo for U.S. Thanksgiving to your Canadian clientele or display an ad for Boxing Day in the U.S.  In line with that, make sure that any landing pages you have connected to those ads are also designed with your targeted location in mind.

Happy selling!

Driving Traffic to Your Blog

In recent blog posts, we’ve encouraged online sellers to create blogs to get people more interested in their online store. A blog can really make a big difference – from providing vital information about your products to pushing your brand forward. Today, we’re discussing how to drive traffic to the blog itself. One advantage of doing this is to promote push marketing. Potential buyers can go from your blog to your online store with the proper placement of links or by dropping your stores name in your posts every so often.

So here goes. Read on for tips to generate more blog traffic:

1. Write content that matters to your audience. Simply writing content you deem great isn’t enough. It’s best to write content that is useful for your audience. You could try different topics, as long as it educates or provides a solution or is relevant to your potential buyers.
2. Use Your RSS feeds. This stands for Real Simple Syndication. Readers can subscribe to it to find out what your latest posts are about. You can also pro-actively use it by submitting it to RSS sites.
3. Join blog catalogs. This is one way to get good backlinks to your blog and get it to rank for target keywords. There are hundreds of blog catalogs out there. Make sure you submit to Technorati as it is the most active and has the biggest audience of all the blog catalogs.
4. Talk about your blog in your social circle. Particularly in your social networks. Drop links there or do excerpts of posts, linking back to your blog for the full article. At least, your friends know about it and you’re getting the initial traffic hits from them. You can even get an honest opinion about the posts you’ve been putting up from the people you trust.
5. Be interactive. If you open your blog posts to comment, make sure you’re also open to having a 2-way conversation with your audience. In other words, when they comment, do take the time to reply to these. You can push this further by reading and posting on other blogs within a similar niche and linking your username to your blog URL in the process.

Blogging is a fun activity that can easily be done daily, but more than that, it’s also a good way to generate traffic for your own online store.

Happy blogging!

 

Growing Your Social Network

These days, social media isn’t just the latest buzz word. It has become a way of life for many and a business avenue for the savvy marketer. As an online store owner, having presence in social networking sites is a smart move to grow your visitors.

But before you start adding just about anyone you know on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, take a moment to review your objectives. It really isn’t about the quantity of friends or followers you have, but really the quality of relationships you keep. Create relationships that benefit you both and it starts with having something in common with your connections.

If this is your first time to explore the said social network, it would ideal to start with your own profile first before you jump into your business’s page. Add your friends, your family and some business associates that you’ve had in the past and those you currently work with. That should give you a good base to work with.

If you’re adding people you’ve never met before, make sure you know them through somebody. After all, it is a social network. Connections of your connections are part of your network. Do introduce yourself properly by customizing the invitation message you send to them

When you’re certain you know enough about how the social network works, it’s time to try your hand at getting exposure for your business. The top three sites-- LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook – all offer ways for you to get the word out about your business. They have group features that allow you to set up event calendars, send mass messaging and really play around with a lot of cool stuff to communicate what you need about your business. You can also create Profile pages about your online store and add relevant details pertaining to your URL, the products you sell and more.

Both profile pages and groups allow you to expand your network even more. You can start by inviting your existing contacts from your personal profile. Another great way to have more connections is to continue posting relevant material in your wall or tweets. We find that daily updates regarding your latest articles or your new promos or even things that refer to your site attract people to link up with you.

Do add a bit of spice to how you manage your accounts. Once in a while, you need to mix things up by posting a fun video (which might even go viral). Or you could post weird products that you are selling. Professional and business-like are appreciated but in a social network, fun attracts more people to connect with you.

Last but not the least, it won’t be a social experience if you don’t participate. Get involved in growing your own network by actively seeking out new people. Aside from those that match your target market, you may want to also reach out to experts in your industry. Do the work and invite them to connect with you.

301, 302 and Other Server Responses

When you often do changes to your site – whether as a result of testing or redesign – an important thing to learn is having your server respond to search engines with the proper messages. This will avoid problems of indexing and may be even getting banned in the future.

The web server status code is a three-digit integer result code to classify the request to the server. There are five types. The 1XX codes are informational such as continue request or switch protocol. The 2XX code indicate that the request was successful, understood or is accepted. The 3XX are codes for redirection. The 4XX are indicative of an error and that the request could not be completed on the client side. The 5XX codes are server errors for a valid request.

Of these, the most commonly used are the redirections. 301 is used for permanent redirection. It means that this and all future requests are to be pointed to the new location. This is used when changing domains, implement a URL rewrite or renaming categories. 302 is for temporary redirects. This type of redirection is typically not recommended as search engines react to them in different ways. It may be used if you have a destination URL that is shorter that your actual URL, but a 301 may just be as effective if character limit in display is not a big issue.

Another useful one is the 404 or the Page Not Found error, this is usually displayed when you have a broken link on your site or your visitors try to access a page that is no longer there. First off, resolve the issue immediately. This is an error that will reduce your ability to convert visitors into buyers. Second, try to customize your error handler such that it if your visitors encounter this, they have a way to get back to the last page that they visited or to your home page instead of being led to a dead end.

The last server error that we’d like to discuss today is the 503 response which tells search engines that the network is unavailable. Though not popularly used, this great little code can tell instruct search engine bots and spiders to ignore your site for now as it is down for maintenance. They will try the page at a later time.

There are a lot of other server response messages out there. Do try to look them up and see how you can use them for your own online stores for different situations that warrant it.

Localizing Your SEO Targeting

  Geotargeting or localized search engine optimization is one of the best ways to gain visibility in your own market. This is particularly important if you have limited capabilities to delivery your items to other countries. Also a must-do if the products you are selling are really geared towards your local audience.

Here are some tips to follow to rank better in the location-centric search engines such as Google.mx, Google.jp, Google.ph and more:

• Use a CCTLD for your domain name. A country code top level domain or CCTLD is the best way to indicate your location, this can in the www.domain.com.pt or www.domain.au formats. It may be a little more costly, but if you’re really looking to target local markets it is worth the investment.
• Get your business listed in the local yellow pages, online edition. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Yellow pages are usually reserved for businesses with physical addresses, so if you do not have a local retail store, then maybe a home office would suffice as the business address. Don’t forget to include your website in your listing, if they allow it.
• Create a Google Places Account. One of the latest offerings from Google, it allows you to get more information about your business online. Check first if your listing is already existing and then claim it. Make sure to update your information and align it with your website.
• Add a Google Map to Your Website.  It would be good to have this in your About Us or Contact Us page. Google crawls Google Maps, but that is not a guarantee that your business will show up in the maps within the search engine results page.
• Add your physical address  with the zip code and your phone number with country code and area code to your footer. Here’s another way to tell both your visitors and the search engines that you are a local business.
• Get links from websites in the same country. Link building still matters to search engine optimization, so if you want Google, Yahoo or Bing to recognize where you’re coming from and what markets you are targeting, then it would be best to link to sites with the same CCTLD extension (.au, .cn, etc)
• Consider hosting locally. It’s difficult to tell if this actually has an impact on your local ranking, but it’s a good tip nonetheless. If for anything else, it will be faster for local visitors to load your website. But to check if your local host also has the servers in the same country, for all you know they may be reselling the service of a bigger hosting company based somewhere else.
• Check on your language use. This is another tip that may not have a significant effect on ranking, but can affect your conversions. Remember that Australian English is different from American English and is also different from British English. If your market is not English-speaking, then consider having a translated version of your website. Get the language right the first time, so your target audience would know that you are speaking to them.

 

Optimizing Your Title Tags

While there are now several ways to get traffic to your website, organic ranking in search engines is still the best free way to get visitors to notice your online store. For major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, their algorithms are the secrets to their success. And no matter what any SEO tells you, no one truly knows what these algorithms are.

At best, most search engine optimization practitioners can get your site to rank high because they’ve studied how Google et al crawl the site, what they look for and the guidelines or best practices they’ve set to get your site indexed.

Still one of the top ways to get your site to rank is to optimize the content for your target keyword. Optimizing the code is another great way to get search engines to notice your site. For the latter, the best way is to work on the meta keywords. Namely your meta descriptions and your page titles. The meta descriptions are really meant for your potential visitors. It should be written in an engaging manner to convince your target audience to click on your links in the search engine results pages.

More important for search engine optimization are your title tags. These are the things you see on the browser title as well as the title that appears in the results pages. In your code, you’ll find this in the header portion before the body tags.

This is the text found between the following tags:  <title> PAGE TITLE GOES HERE </title>

To start you off in the right direction, here are some tips you can use for writing your page title:

• Create different page titles for all of your web pages.
• Place the keywords to the left most side of the page title as these will be crawled first by the search engines.
• Keep your keywords to one to three sets maximum; do not stuff your title tag with keywords.
• The character limit for Google is 64 characters, any words or letters in excess of that is usually truncated.
• To separate between keywords, you can use a comma, to separate the keywords from any other part of the title you can use a dash or a pipe: |
• Make sure that your titles are relevant to the page and any keywords used in the title should also be used in the page content.
• Don’t forget to add your brand in the title, perhaps towards the end