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.

To receive the latest ecommerce custom store design and development news, stay tuned to The FastPivot.com Blog and sign up to receive the FastPivot.com ecommerce newsletter.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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?”
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

Although there are dozens of ways to make the most of your LinkedIn social marketing, here are five ways we have found most useful in using LinkedIn:

1) Tell the whole truth: For others to begin to trust you online, it’s important to complete your profile with 100% total accuracy. Don’t hesitate to send out Linkedin invites to your professional associates and take the time to ask for references. Just as it is important for employee seekers to see some bona fieds, it is equally as important for B2B decision makers to feel as if they’re doing business with someone who has a solid network of connections, great references, and valid credentials.

2) Cast savory bits: Once you’ve built an incredible and fully-loaded profile, get into the habit of regularly updating your status with mouth-watering copy. It might not be as important in the beginning when you only have five, ten, or twenty connections, but as your network grows, there are sure to be a lot of hungry eyes scanning your lines, especially since they populate automatically on all of your connections’ LinkedIn home pages. If you feel you’re already updating via Twitter with the same information you would want to drop into your LinkedIn status updates, it might be worthwhile to take the time to sync your Twitter with your LinkedIn.

3) Huddle: It’s a snap to beckon dozens of professional group profiles via a quick keyword search. Since LinkedIn users are allowed to be a member of up to 50 groups, apply to join plenty of of the most relevant, populated, and active ones. Once you’ve been accepted, befriend group members whose profile match your client candidate desires. Don’t be squeamish about initiating discussion either.

4) Clink glasses: OK, so you’re updating your status and initiating some new discussion, but it’s also important to interact with your connections and fellow group members. Comment on your connections’ updates and group members’ discussions. Strive to be an integral part of your LinkedIn community.

5) Start your own drumbeat : If you’re already producing regular educational blogs or have a lot of product/industry information you’d like to share, create your own LinkedIn group and invite your contacts to join. If you keep it active and interesting, membership will grow like a beanstalk.

How, might you ask, will these five tenets help me market my online store brand and product? Successful marketing is all about creating relationships. Via LinkedIn or any other virtual social networking platform, take the time to qualify the professionals and groups you spend your time with. Once qualified and befriended, most connections invite the chance to network with another professional who can confidently offer a trusted B2B solution.

Every In-mail you send, update you make, or discussion you post, links directly to your profile, which points back to your branded store through the hot links you’ve included and the profile copy you’ve presented. This is especially the case if you’ve started your own LinkedIn group, which can, by the way, be conveniently clad in any logo of your choice and outfitted with a RSS feed of your online store blogs. Also, the more active you are on LinkedIn, the more people will want to invite you into their social circle. Social media love is viral as long as you keep it real.

The keys to making LinkedIn work is being consistent with your updates and networking strategies, actively nourishing and growing your network, and carrying out LinkedIn social marketing in conjunction with a multi-pronged social media plan.

For more information on social media marketing, refer back to the  New Social Media Map Model Built to Maximize Ecommerce Store Sales Conversion blog and sign up to receive our complimentary ecommerce newsletter updates.

To get help launching or managing your company’s social media campaigns, contact Fastpivot.com social media experts today.

Shopping Engine Success for Yahoo Stores with guest FastPivot
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PST
Webinar Registration
Last month’s webinar was so popular we had to do it again!

Approximately 1/3 of Americans use comparison shopping engines at least once per month. Your ecommerce site should be earning 10-20% of your monthly traffic and revenue from your listings on comparison engines. Are your results on par?

This webinar is geared towards Yahoo! Stores (over $250k annual sales) who are committed to increasing revenue in 2010.

Have you ever wondered how to increase your traffic and sales on your Yahoo! Store? Whether you’ve struggled in your attempts to list your products on comparison shopping engines like Google Product Search, Yahoo Shopping or Shopzilla, or just want to find out more about data feed optimization this is the webinar for you!

Or maybe you’re getting the qualified clicks from the shopping engines and wondering “now what?” If you are looking to setup and configure analytics for your store or add custom fields that improve landing page conversion rate, we’ll show you how to ensure you’ve setup your store to track and optimize the conversion.

Join SingleFeed as we share our expertise and advice in getting started with the shopping engines.  Yahoo! Stores design and helper company FastPivot will be joining us to not only discuss how to properly track your shopping engine campaigns with Yahoo! Analytics, but also help you understand what metrics to keep an eye on.

We’ll be covering the following topics:
- How to add custom fields to your Yahoo Store
- Properly measuring results with Yahoo/Google Analytics
- Take home action items/tips to optimize your feed
- Yahoo Shopping & Pricegrabber changes

To receive the latest ecommerce store design and development news, stay tuned to The FastPivot.com Blog and sign up to receive the FastPivot.com ecommerce newsletter.

Contact FastPivot.com to get help with your online store launch, custom Yahoo store website build/design/ development, SEO optimization, social media marketing, ecommerce strategy, and much more!

Asheville NC-based FastPivot.com landed in Orlando last Saturday to prepare for the conference which launched this past Monday and extended into late Wednesday afternoon. Throughout the week, FastPivot.com held ecommerce store web design/development booth audits and had the honor of presenting on the main stage. Those attending on behalf of FastPivot.com were Matthew Ledford, President; Grant Henry, Director of Strategy; Ken Lubeck, Project Manager; Jen Boos, Director of Marketing; Jonathan Poston, Social Media/PR and Nikki Whited, Creative Lead.

Overall, the attendee traffic, knowledge exchange opportunities, and presentations made the trip well worthwhile.  Conference highlights are included in the photo/video journal summary below:

IRWD guests coming to the FastPivot.com booth for ecommerce consults

Kurt Peters, Editor in Chief, Internet Retailer, IRWD opening remarks

John Thompson, General Manager, Bestbuy.com, IRWD Keynote

YouTube video splice: John Thompson, Bestbuy.com GM at IRWDspeaking on relevant url inclusion

Patrick Colbert, HardRock.com, speaking on new merchandising

Jimmy Healey, onlineshoes.com, on getting manufacturer help with ecommerce video production

Lauren Freedman, President, The e-tailing group speaks on product personalization etc.

Bridget Fahrland, Director, Creative Strategy, Fry Inc. speaking on Creating Social Marketing Success

FastPivot.com President, Matthew Ledford on the main stage at IRWD with Tom Funk, Vice President, Marketing, Timberline Interactive, speaking on "helping customers find the treasure at your site"

YouTube video splices below of FastPivot.com President, Matthew Ledford, (with Tom Funk) conducting site navigation reviews at #IRWD 2010:

1) Introduction

2)  Vixity.com ecommerce store design critique

3) Watchery.com ecommerce store design critique

4)   Altestore.com ecommerce store design critique

5) Joann.com ecommerce store design critique

6) Discmakers.com ecommerce store design critique

IRWD conference networking: FastPivot.com President, Matthew Ledford, talking with New Balance ecommerce store designer Rita Moore

Jay Scannell, SkyMall.com, on "how to make your site mobile"

FastPivot.com President FastPivot.com President, Matthew Ledford (far right) & Director of Marketing, Jen Boos (far left) with Tami Cole (center) from DollarTree.com

IRWD networking and dining at the Orlando Hyatt

More great FastPivot.com booth Yahoo store build & design consults

To receive the latest ecommerce store design and development news, stay tuned to The FastPivot.com Blog and sign up to receive the FastPivot.com ecommerce newsletter.

Contact FastPivot.com to get help with your online ecommerce store launch, custom Yahoo store website build-design-development, SEO optimization, social media marketing, ecommerce strategy, and much more!