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It is estimated that 20% of all searches have local intent, especially for restaurants, insurance, legal, retail, hotels and other types of companies within the service industry. A recent comScore study revealed that 61% of local searches result in purchases. These overwhelming statistics show that millions of potential customers are searching the internet, then buying online, calling for more information or making purchases directly from local stores – those are numbers you can’t afford to ignore.
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Gain Access to Shoppers Who Are Ready to Buy

It used to be that doing a simple search on Google for a particular product would return relevant content sites only. You had to actually drill down and find the shopping results on your own. Until recently, Google only had a small shopping link at the top of the page that generated very few clicks; you may remember when they launched this as Froogle. Now, Google’s Product Search feature, also known as Google Shopping puts direct links to products right at the top of the search results. If you run an ecommerce site and you’re interested in putting your products at the top of the list, keep reading to learn how to send look-to-buy shoppers directly to the product page in question.
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Although nothing is certain in today’s economy, ecommerce remains a beacon of possibility and profit. Your customers don’t have to leave home to buy your products, and it’s often more cost-effective to host a virtual storefront than a brick-and-mortar one. Ecommerce sites are well positioned in this turbulent time. However, with the economy in flux and competition intensifying now is certainly not the time to become complacent. (more…)

Ever been frustrated by the competition?  Let’s face it – they have huge advertising budgets and, well, you don’t.  What if I told you that there was a way to use their search engine rank to get some more attention for your own ecommerce site…would you be interested?

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According to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of Internet users who use search engines on a daily basis as been steadily rising over the past six years.

A similar study by the group in 2002 reported that about one third of users visited search engine sites daily, but that number has increased to an impressive 49% this year making the importance of search engine placement and visibility even more evident to those doing business online.  This only goes to substantiate what (more…)

The process of SEO is possible one of the most often misunderstood and troublesome techniques on the Internet and in no arena is it more important than in the area of niche marketing – especially when it comes to small and medium-sized businesses.  The harsh truth of the matter is that regardless of how cutting edge your ecommerce web design may be, without proper and consistent use of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques you are just doing the doggie paddle in a wading pool.  By practicing and employing a few simple ideas though, you’ll be the Michael Phelps of SEO in no time flat.

Are you telling your customers to get lost? If you aren’t using common sense when putting together your website and website content, you may be.

Think of it from your customer’s point of view for a minute:

John Q. Customer just had a great first date and wants to send this new girl some flowers, but he doesn’t have the yellow pages handy (it is probably holding up the corner of his coffee table if you want to know the truth), so he pulls up his favorite search engine.

What does he type? Well if I were John, I would type in “Florists in New York, NY” (or whatever city John Q. lives in). I’m going out on a limb here, but if you were a florist in New York, I would venture a guess that you would want your website to be at the top of the search engine results.

Now visit the search engines and type in those phrases to see where you rank, if at all. Not seeing what you want?

That’s when it is time to take a look at things from the search engine’s viewpoint. Does the main page (or supporting pages, for that matter) have the phrase “florists in New York” in the text content? If not, then how is the search engine supposed to know that you aren’t a diesel mechanic in Miami?

If you don’t spell it out, even the smartest search engine isn’t going to be able to help John Q. Customer find you. Even if they could, they aren’t going to go through the trouble because it would seem that if you don’t bother taking the time to include those crucial keywords in your website, they must not be important enough to bother with.

Step outside your box for a few minutes and think for a while about the phrases that an average customer might type into a search engine to find ecommerce sites like yours. Are you using those phrases in your website content? If the answer is no, then you have some work to do.

Even if the phrase doesn’t seem to lend itself easily to informative content it can still be made to read easily. Let’s look at an example:

keyphrase: florists in New York City

website content includes: “XYZ Floral Design is one of the premiere florists in New York City, specializing in wedding and special event designs…”

Get the picture now? There’s no shame in asking for directions. If people were still afraid to do so, the search engines wouldn’t be pulling in millions of searches every day.

This is the first in a regular series of quick tips to alter your thinking with regard to search engines.  In fact, the goal is to learn to think like the search engines themselves, since being able to think like they operate will give you a decided advantage in the ever-present battle for the online consumer.

Today’s tip is so obvious that you have have overlooked it and if you have, your ecommerce website may be suffering in the search engine ratings as a result. For the purposes of this post, I am assuming that for your site you are using a template-based program to administer your website, such as WordPress (which I use to write and manage this blog).

While template-based programs make administration a breeze, they can also be the biggest cause of what is commonly called duplicate content death.  (more…)

I miss the days depicted in those old westerns.

You know the ones I’m talking about – when the good guys had white hats and the villains were always topped in black. Life may have been tough back then, but at least you always knew where you stand and you could spot your enemies from 200 yards.

Nowadays the same premise applies to the world of ecommerce, especially in the realm of your SEO techniques and practices. Regardless of the ecommerce internet solution you employ on your website there are practices that can get you marked as a black hatter and you may be doing it without knowing. (more…)

1. Keyword Abuse

What I mean by keyword abuse is that you have found a collection of keywords and attempt to use as many of them in one article. This is most often illustrated by the use of a list of keywords in the article that don’t have any apparent relevance.

2. Incorrect / Inapplicable Keywords

An extension of #1, the use of incorrect or inapplicable keywords is evidenced by inserting keywords into your content that have nothing to do with your website or content. Not only will this backfire in your search engine ratings it will also cause your visitors to immediately take their business elsewhere.

3. Keyword Flooding

Don’t ever – EVER – attempt to insert a stockpile of keywords in hidden code on your web page. This will result in almost immediate black listing by the search engine robots as soon as the infracion is discovered.

In reality, all of these sins not only result in turning the search engines against you (which equals online business death, by the way), but it will also seriously affect the professional appearance of your business in an industry where first impressions are often what means the difference between a sale and a pass.