Netconcepts

Articles authored by Netconcepts

Netconcepts — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 07:31:33 +0000

The value of knowledge is only realized if you share it. In that vein, we welcome you to peruse our library of articles. We’ve authored hundreds of articles, many of them by our founder/president Stephan Spencer — a prolific writer. What you will find here is the best of our collected works. Enjoy!

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Or browse them all below. Articles are organized in reverse chronological order.

Shop.org Roundtable: Thorny SEO Issues for Retailers

Stephan Spencer — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:18:37 +0000

Are you attending the Shop.org Annual Summit? Join Netconcepts Founder & President Stephan Spencer as he facilitates this roundtable discussion on “Faceted (Attribute-based) Navigation and Other Thorny SEO Issues for Retailers“.

To read the details of the full conference visit the Shop.org conference website.

SEO Toolbox Tips

Patricia Fusco — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:03:23 +0000

How current is your SEO Toolbox? Do you have all the tools needed to research, analyze & diagnose the SEO issues for your website? Are you reading the most useful blogs? How well organized are the RSS feeds you subscribe to? Are you using webmaster tools to gain an inside view to how the search engines see your website? In this article Netconcepts Director of Search, P.J. Fusco shares a few of her favorite goodies in her SEO Toolbox:

…updating and refreshing your SEO toolbox requires a continual flow of information to keep up with the job’s demands. Keeping your SEO toolbox well organized and current has never been more challenging.

Read the full SEO Toolbox article at ClickZ.

SEO Report Card: Littlepixiegifts.com.au

Jeff Muendel — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:47:21 +0000

A SEO review of this site and the Best Practices in use, as well as opportunities for new optimization. Analyst Jeff Muendel of Netconcepts goes through the site with a fine tooth comb. Learn from his findings on how to analyze your ecommerce website and tweak it in time for holiday traffic.

If Little Pixie Gifts has an SEO weak point, it is in the URLs. As search engines spider the URL addresses along with title tags and page content, each URL should reflect the keyword theme of the page. Instead, Little Pixie Gifts has URLs like http://www.littlepixiegifts.com.au/cart.php?target=category&category_id=62. While such a URL doesn’t necessarily hurt things from a search engine perspective, it certainly doesn’t help.

To read the full article, visit Practical Ecommerce.

A Natural Disposition for Search

Patricia Fusco — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:29:48 +0000

Is the use of rich media and new web technologies such as AJAX hiding your retail website from search engine spiders? Has your company shifted efforts away from natural search optimization to opt for the coolest, new applications to enhance the user experience? In this article for ClickZ, P.J. Fusco, director of natural search for Netconcepts discusses the importance of maintaining a natural search marketing strategy.

With rich media in plan, dynamic Web site constructs in motion, and competing forces all around, putting together a natural search strategy has many complex components. Just as a wetland must work in harmony with the environment to produce desired results, so too must an online organization provide resources for understanding natural search, lest the spiders get bogged down by the muck.

For more about this topic, visit the full article on ClickZ.

Christmas in July?

Patricia Fusco — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:08:17 +0000

Link building tips to get ready for the holiday season. Netconcepts’ director of search, P.J. Fusco discusses the need for quality links for Search Engine Optimization. While many retailers focus their energy and glitzy gift sections and giving guides for every member of the family, links are the gift that will keep on giving to a website’s value to search engines.

To learn more about this tactic, read the full article at ClickZ.

Be a Converter

Stephan Spencer — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:09:13 +0000

Do you know your website’s conversion rate? Do you know if it is above or below average for a typical merchant? The average conversion rate is only about 2.4%. How can you increase your site’s conversion rate? Learn from Netconcepts Founder & President, Stephan Spencer about how to improve your organization’s website to become a better converter. In this article for MultiChannel Merchant, Stephan discusses the use of Persuasion Architecture, how to design for different personality types, analyze your audience’s needs and to adjust your tone.

Technology is not a means to higher conversion rates; it is just a tool that must be properly managed, configured, and implemented in order to reach your goals. Just having a great CMS with an advanced shopping cart system is not enough — there are no “set it and forget it” solutions for improving your conversion rate.

For more on this topic, read the full article here.

Social Media Tips and Tricks

Netconcepts — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:03:15 +0000

Interviewed by Jim Hedger of Metamend, Stephan Spencer, founder & president of Netconcepts, recaps a few tips, and tricks from his session at SES Toronto 2008. If you missed this powerful session at SES, learn some nuggets of useful link building tricks from one of the masters.

View the full video interview here.

Link Building Strategies for Internet Retailers

Netconcepts — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:06:12 +0000

In this video Stephan Spencer, Netconcepts President & Founder is interviewed at the Internet Retailer conference by Get Elastic about Link Building strategies for online retailers. How can your organization increase PageRank to interior pages? Does a link building initiative mean building links only to your home page? What is ‘PageRank sculpting‘, and how can it impact a website?

To view the video interview and learn more on this topic, go here.

SEO: How Creative Link Building Can Multiply Site Traffic

Patricia Fusco — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:13:09 +0000

The right links are fuel for a retail web site’s search engine rankings. But building the right links is among the most difficult, misunderstood and poorly executed aspects of search engine optimization. There are two kinds of links that retailers should focus on to improve such rankings. Links from an e-retailer’s product page to other relevant product pages within the site—with relevant, as judged by the search engine spider, being the keyword—is one type. But a retailer can’t just put a bunch of links on a site to achieve a higher rank without taking into account whether the links achieve business goals. Such links must make merchandising and business sense, otherwise they will interfere with the shopper’s experience and possibly have a deleterious effect on a retail site. The second kind of link is links coming into a site from external sources, which retailers have a lot less control over. A link from a hunting magazine to an outdoor retail site is a link from an authoritative external site and those kinds of links can boost a retailer’s search rankings. But they are much harder to achieve because they require persuading the outside site to link to the retailer’s site, a mostly manual process. This session will examine criteria for evaluating a link’s value, creative link building strategies, link building dos and don’ts, and how to leverage affiliates and social media content. It will tell attendees how seemingly innocent practices can undermine a search engine optimization program and how best practices in search marketing are likely to change in the near future.

Workshop Presenters:
P.J. Fusco, Senior Consultant, NetConcepts
Mark Kaufman, Associate Vice President, CNet Findability, CNet