eCommerce Blog

Full recording of “Shopping Engine Success for Yahoo Stores” webinar now available

jposton — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:40:22 +0000

FastPivot.com’s President, Matthew Ledford, and Director of Strategy, Grant Henry discussed how to properly track shopping engine campaigns with Yahoo! Analytics and what metrics to keep an eye on during the Shopping Engine Success for Yahoo Stores webinar held this past February 24, 2010.

A full recording, complete with slides, of the webinar is embedded below (*free access).

Top Ecommerce Store Design SEO Tip #4:Remove SEO Roadblocks– domain, code, layout, or scripting issues

jposton — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:49:32 +0000

In one of our earlier blogs, Top Five Seo Tips for Yahoo! Ecommerce Storefront Owners, “Removing SEO Roadblocks – domain, code, layout, or scripting issues“ is listed as a top tip to help boost your Yahoo! online store SEO.

When most people use onsite optimization tactics with SEO, they usually only make changes to the content itself, when many behind-the-scenes factors could very well be causing hiccups. Those hiccups deter a search engine crawler’s ability to follow and understand the structure and content of what you are putting out for actual humans to read.

This checklist below highlights some often ignored behind-the-scenes factors:

Potential domain issues

• When you type in http://yourstore.com does it forward to http://www.yourstore.com?
• Are other versions of your domain forwarding correctly?

If not, then you could be thinning your SEO presence online – or creating duplicate content issues.

Internal linking strategy

•   Are you positioning more important links near the top of the page?
•   Do you link to all pages from all pages? You’ve heard the phrase, “If you show everything, you show nothing.” The same can be said for your internal linking strategy.
•   Are you using no follow tags on links that point to pages considered unimportant from an SEO perspective?
•   Do you have breadcrumbs in your store?
•   Have you taken advantage of strategic linking in the footer?

Internal linking not only builds a healthy store hierarchy from a visitor’s perspective, but it gives the search engines an idea of what to consider important in a store.

Basic coding issues

• Have you run any tools on pages to detect unclosed tags, load errors, or just bad code?
• Do you have an extraneous numbers of lines making up the source of a page? Can this code be optimized?

Pages may load somewhat well in some browsers, but remember to test pages often to make sure they are loading cleanly and ensure that pages are programmed as cleanly as possible.

Javascript and CSS

•   Are there currently CSS or Javascript errors on any of your pages?
•   Do you have all Javascript located in external files?
•   Do you have all CSS located in an external file?
•   Do you have important links embedded inside Javascript?

Clearing up some “behind-the-scenes” SEO roadblocks may require an additional technical skill, beyond what the average SEO expert may have, so it’s definitely worth asking your programmers to check for code issues before calling it a day.

In conclusion, getting the most out of your SEO efforts requires an ongoing, multi-pronged strategy that doesn’t just stop with creating great keyword-rich content and getting external links pointing to it. If you need SEO experts that can take you to the next level, contact FastPivot.com for an initial consultation.

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FastPivot.com to offer social media workshop near Asheville NC

jposton — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:20:43 +0000

The Small Business Center in Marshall NC will host Jonathan Poston of FastPivot.com who will provide a hands on workshop for social media marketing for small business owners and entrepreneurs on March 22 from 6-9 p.m in the VSBC. This is a great opportunity to learn how to integrate social media with your ecommerce store.

Though some computers will be available, attendees should bring a laptop if they have one. Space is limited. Admittance is free.

Contact Jennifer Flynn at 649-3444 or email marshallncstep@gmail.com for more info.

Top Ecommerce Store Design SEO Tip #3: Deploy Off-Site Link Building Techniques

jposton — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:25:17 +0000

In one of our earlier blogs, Top Five Seo Tips for Yahoo! Ecommerce Storefront Owners, “deploying off-site link building techniques” is listed as a tip to help boost your Yahoo! ecommerce store SEO.

Why link build?

It’s simple: It’s another form of social validation: the more other sites link to your online store site, the more important search engines will think your store site is.

One might assume that good content should be king when it comes to being found through organic search, but that’s not completely true. With so many systems out there auto-generating content, search engines have been forced to find other ways to determine website reputability. One way they do this is by creating an importance rating based on the number of one-way links pointing into any given website. Google’s PageRank scoring system is known around the world. To some experts, achieving a great PageRank score is the primary goal of Search Engine Optimization. In short, the more permanent links pointing into your domain by reputable and relevant sources, the better your Google Pagerank score and the more you improve your organic positioning in general.

How to get other websites to link to your site?

Getting listed on directories

Buying spots on web directories is one of several methods of getting permanent links pointing to your store. But buying your way in isn’t as valuable as it used to be. Over the years, search engines have become more adept at recognizing and ignoring link farms that have no inherent value to visitors. Although this practice still works to some extent, the value just isn’t what it was.

Purchasing a link spot on a relevant local business directory is automatically more relevant than many link farms. Many times, local business directories will list your site at the basic level for free. These directories are legitimate resource sites set up to help consumers find their desired product, service. There may even be a community product/service rating/review system integrated into the directory, which further validates that directory as being legitimate.

Write for newspapers and magazines

These days newspapers and magazines aren’t able to afford writers like they could in the “age of print.” They’re still starving for content, but many times can’t pay freelancers enough to write niche articles. If an expert columnist offers to write a quality piece in exchange for a post-article bio and business link, it is a win on both sides.

Hyperlink your press releases

In today’s media, many things that go in print will first be pasted into the online news section. Make sure to include hyperlinks in your press releases, so any information you send the press can link back to you.

Although there are many other ways to get your links out there that we won’t cover in this blog, it’s important to remember to manage the time you spend building links and updating your store’s content. At the end of the day, if your ecommerce store doesn’t include link-worthy content, you’ll see all your hard earned link referral matrix crumble in a fraction of the time it took to build.

Some final link building reminders:

•    Remember links are more important than large amounts of content, but you won’t get those links without great content. They go hand in hand.
•   Keep in mind the anchor text on your links if you have control over that. For example, if your landing page link is a page all about large argyle socks, try and make sure the text that is actually linked is “large argyle socks” – not something like “click here”.
•    Keep up with your competitors’ links by going to Google and typing link:http://www.yourcompetitor.com in the search box.

If all of this information seems daunting, contact the FastPivot.com SEO experts for a custom SEO help solution.

five ways to improve the social media customer experience

jposton — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:36:04 +0000

Helping social media customers through the conversion process is much the same as facilitating the process with other online customers. It’s also important to learn how to understand and respond appropriately to your social media leads around the entire shopping experience; before, during, and after.

It’s easy to forget, particularly if you’re posting gobs of information everyday, that there are real people behind those avatars who are there with the primary purpose of interacting with others. “But,” you might say,” they are also here to find solutions and read about interesting news developments within their sphere of interest.” True. But, again, that’s not the catalyst behind the masses plugging into social media. If it were just news or solutions social media fanatics wanted they would just read online how-to articles and newspapers. They want relationships and interaction! They want to be able to prod and query the product/service marketer for feedback, and to perhaps even become their friend.

Improve your social media customer experience by:

Striving to develop meaningful relationships with your Twitter followers, Facebook fans etc., especially with those re-tweeting, re-posting, or re-blogging your message. Use that relationship to make sure your social media friends are getting the information they need about your product or service. To do this, you must interact with your network contacts on a regular basis; daily in some cases.
After throwing out links to your next blog, newest product pages etc., try posting follow up inquiries that might help those interested find exactly what they’re looking for. Take this post for example: “five ways to improve the social media customer experience.” After posting it, we might put another line out asking our social media friends questions like: “Was this helpful?, Did we leave anything out?, or Can we clarify any of points better for you?”
In order for social media marketers (SMM) to see leads through the entire conversion process, they should have a direct connection with many the key players within their company, especially within the sales team. That key sales contact should let SMMs know the types of leads that are coming in from social media and who they are. Then SMMs can catch up with those leads back in the social media-sphere to make sure the process is going smoothly and that they have everything they need.
Great follow up customer service is priceless. Even after the initial transaction is complete, keep following up to make sure everything is working out fine. Through these follow ups, you might be able to head off any frustrations for the customer too, which will ultimately lead to repeat sales and more viral marketing.
Keep your ear to the wire by monitoring what others are saying about you through social media keyword alerts. Don’t be intimidated by the negative comments. Interject and educate: help them turn that frown upside down. In the world of social media where the viral chattering can make or break a company in 140 characters or less, somebody’s got to be on the front lines to address the fires or at least re-direct the flames or your company could start burning down without your even knowing it.

In conclusion, it’s vitally important to stay by your lead’s side during the entire shopping experience. If you miss the chance to be there to make even the slightest portion of the procedure easier, your competitors will be there to do it for you. Social media is a great way to constantly engage with your customers through a variety of different channels to make sure no one is slipping through the cracks. Remember all of this takes time, so when you’re implementing your yearly Social Media Road Map build in a minimum of ten to twenty hours per week to engage your audience!

FastPivot.com offers complete custom ecommerce online store development and design solutions. To get help launching or managing your company’s social media campaigns, contact Fastpivot.com social media experts today. If you want to stay up to date on social media marketing and other ecommerce developments, have our free and informative newsletter delivered straight to your inbox by signing up here.