Common SEO Errors With Retail Websites

Posted on March 22nd, 2008 | Subscribe in a Reader | Subscribe by Email

There are at least 5 common errors with many retail websites.

Hollow PageRank sucking pages.
Information spread across many pages.
Bad site structure.
Sloppy page titles and on site optimization
Nothing remarkable.

1.) Some websites have a lot of pages like “view cart,” “shipping information,” “track orders,” “contact us,” and other such administrative pages. In some cases there are many unique permutations of these types of pages depending on what page of the site you are on.

It is in the interest of most retailers to prevent these administrative type of pages from getting indexed, especially if they have a lot of them.

2.) Some websites only offer a limited amount of information (like the manufacturer details) on the product level page. And then they create another page for one or more of the following: product photos, product feedback, manufacturer details, related products, editorial reviews, and consumer feedback. Ideally much of this information can be consolidated into a single page such that pagerank is spread more heavily across a fewer number of pages.

3.) Some retail sites put way too many choices in parallel, featuring low value categories and low value products alongside their top sellers. Seasonally selected items, best sellers, and other high margin items can be promoted more aggressively across the site to help flow more PageRank and exposure to those pages.

Additionally, if a company expands internationally it is recommended to use subdomains or separate domains for the various target markets rather than placing all the content for the various markets on one domain Continue reading »

SEO Philippines T-Shirt Design Contest Winner

Posted on March 18th, 2008 | Subscribe in a Reader | Subscribe by Email

Yepee! I won the SEO Philippines T-Shirt Design Contest!

Here were the rules:

The design can incorporate our logo( SEO PHILIPPINES) in some way or you can create your own SEO.PH logo
You can enter as many designs as you like.
The design cannot violate any copyright laws or existing trademarks (we don’t really mind, but you know how people can be about this stuff).
The design itself can have a maximum of two colors and encompass both the front and the back of the shirt if need be (just make it clear in your submission which part is supposed to be on front and which part is supposed to be bringing up the rear).
By submitting your design you give us non-exclusive rights to use the image in the design of an SEO.PH t-shirt as well as for other SEO.PH promotional materials.

Read the contest details here (login required)

SEO Philippines T-Shirt Design Contest Winner

Here are the prizes: Continue reading »

New Job as an SEO Specialist

Posted on March 10th, 2008 | Subscribe in a Reader | Subscribe by Email

Tonight, March 10 is my official start date as an SEO Specialist for a Promotional Products Company, located in Ortigas Center, Pasig City. My main duty is to generate traffic and improve rankings to all assigned affiliate sites and generate leads from them. Many of these sites needs a lot of work, both on On Page and Off Page. I am aiming to give it my best and be an asset to the company.

Wish me luck Continue reading »

E-Mail as a Marketing Tool

Posted on March 5th, 2008 | Subscribe in a Reader | Subscribe by Email

Email Marketing is one of the most effective and cost-efficient direct marketing technique which utilizes the electronic mail to communicate fund raising and commercial messages to Internet users. In simple terms, we can say that when you send an email to a prospect or a current customer, you are already applying email marketing. Businesses usually send emails to people to enhance merchant-customer relationships and to encourage customer loyalty for both old and current customers. They also send emails to get hold of new customers and convince old ones to buy their products again. Merchants can also inform people of their new products and services through advertising banners and text ads included in the email message which customers can easily click and lead them to the specific website which provides the advertised goods and services.

For more information on Email Marketing, join the SEO Book Training by Aaron Wall.

There are many advantages that email marketing offers in comparison to traditional paper direct mail and these are:

It reaches millions of target recipients in only just a few seconds. Compared to traditional direct mail campaigns which involve a lot more work, doing an email marketing promotion can help you obtain results in only a few days.
Since people all over the world can’t get on with their day without opening their inboxes, thus you can receive immediate response from prospects right after you send out your campaign. The sooner you get the results, the faster you can plan on your next step.
Unlike traditional mail which is limited to geographical factors like time zones, postal codes and regulations, etc., email is much more flexible offering not only local audience but can also go as far as national and international.
It is cost effective. Traditional mail usually incurs much more cost because it involves printing, mailing, postage and production costs.

In organizing your own email marketing campaign, you can use standard email programs like Microsoft Outlook, Continue reading »

Introduction to Affiliate Marketing

Posted on March 5th, 2008 | Subscribe in a Reader | Subscribe by Email

Affiliate Marketing has gained popularity over the years. With the advantages that it offers, webmasters definitely cling to it as one of the effective means of promoting their goods and services. Nowadays, rarely do you see ecommerce websites that do not have an Affiliate Marketing Program because this method helps them boost their overall presence in the Internet. It is also very cost-effective in comparison to other promotional mediums like TV ads, banner ads and web sponsorships whereby they may spend millions of dollars.

Before we continue, let us first determine what Affiliate Marketing really is. For these two terms, there are various definitions possible but on this article, we can simply define it as a promotional technique widely used by many merchants to earn more revenue through the help of affiliates who are paid through commissions based on the visitors, subscribers or customers they provide. Each affiliate has his own unique ID so that when a site visitor clicks on a text ad or banner on the affiliate’s site, the action performed by the prospect will be recorded as his.

To learn more about Affiliate Marketing techniques, join Aaron Wall’s SEO Book Training now!

There are many models applied in Affiliate Marketing and among these are four popular methods, namely: pay-per-click, pay-per-lead, pay-per-sale and cost-per-action Continue reading »

Why do we need to learn Web Analytics?

Posted on March 5th, 2008 | Subscribe in a Reader | Subscribe by Email

Before we know the reason why we need to learn Web Analytics, we have to know what it means. Simply put, Web Analytics is the evaluation of the behavior of the site visitors.

We may have heard from a lot of people on how important Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns are. We may also know ourselves that SEO deals with organic listings while PPC deals with paid listings. Despite their difference, they both share the same goal which is to help improve site traffic, increase conversion and decrease expenses on less effective advertising campaigns. But what is the relation between SEO and PPC to Web Analytics? Their relationship relies on the fact that Web Analytics covers both organic and paid listings in terms of the data gathered for analysis. The information used in Web Analytics is from the traffic generated by SEO and PPC.

Improve your site traffic and increase your website revenue by learning the basics of Search Engine Optimization by joining the SEO Book Training.

In SEO and PPC, we focus in generating high targeted traffic while in Web Analytics, we concentrate in boosting quality traffic and enhancing conversion. Moreover, in Web Analytics, we take note of every activity performed by site visitors from entry to exit such as on what landing pages they have visited, what way they found our site, conversion rates, the efficiency of advertising campaigns or referring sites and the details of the visitors. We use all these information to help us know whether each webpage has really worked towards the realization of the business objectives Continue reading »