Panelists:
Lauren Freedman, President, the e-tailing group
Stephan Spencer, President, Netconcepts
Amy Africa, President, Eight by Eight

This screencast isn’t about search engine optimization fundamentals. You will learn how to take your search engine optimization skill set to the next level, even if you’re already a savvy search marketer.

Watch Stephan and Rand’s webinar as a streaming Flash video »

Or, alternatively download/watch as a Quicktime (m4v) movie (77 MB).

Watch Stephan and Avinash’s webinar as a streaming Flash video »

Or, alternatively download/watch as a Quicktime (m4v) movie (77 MB).

Traffic down? Conversions starting to wane? It could be any number of SEO issues. Finding free online tools to hone search optimization for an ecommerce site can be tough. There are a lot of them out there, often promotional in nature, and they offer varying degrees of features and reliability. Some spit out data that is simply erroneous and applying this sort of information to website design can be useless at best and deadly, in Internet terms, of course, at worst.

In this article originally published on Practical eCommerce Jeff Muendel, Search Analyst for Netconcepts, writes about Aaron Wall’s Website Health Check tool, a beneficial “free” SEO tool that offers easy-to-read, uncomplicated reports on a number of issues that includes missing title tags and meta descriptions to checking for duplicate content and verifying your error pages are returning the correct code.

Jeff also recommends some of Stephan Spencer’s previous articles for more SEO tool information and suggestions “on developing an SEO toolkit, Google Webmaster Tools, and SEO: Tools For Link Building.”

In this MarketingProfs seminar, you will gain best practices, invaluable tactics (such as “thin slicing”) and quick-hit tips and tricks. And you’ll discover what to avoid. All with real-world examples from major websites - both commercial and non-commercial.

• How to expand into countless keyword markets
• How to get many more pages indexed
• How to optimize your HTML templates and CSS to make those pages “sing” to the search engines
• How to pass your PageRank much more effectively through your site
• How to build deep links to internal pages, not just to your home page
• How to measure success using new (and little-known!) metrics and KPIs

Speakers:
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts
Chris Smith, Lead Search Strategist, Netconcepts

Video:
The first video seen below is the original 90-minute webinar featuring Stephan Spencer and Chris Smith. (The Quicktime file is 112 MB)

The second video is the Q&A section of the webinar, which was so long we did it as a separate recording, lasting 105 minutes. (The Quicktime file is 205 MB)

Concepts shared in this one-hour training format will benefit executives from small to large-sized newspapers seeking to learn more about search engine optimization.

Learn guided instructions on how to incorporate the concepts of SEO to make the most of your Web site.

Speakers:
Stephan Spencer, Netconcepts
Steven Evatt, The Houston Chronicle’s Chron.com

Problem

PoolDawg, an online billiards store, was in need of taking their internet marketing presence to the next level. They determined that SEO was the means to get them there.

“As a newer company in an established market, it was extremely important to get a jump start on our search engine listings,” says Mike Feiman, Director of Marketing for PoolDawg.com.

Their original website suffered from several structural/functional limitations and relatively low conversion rates.

Solution

An initial SEO analysis document was completed and presented for PoolDawg. The analysis covered the primary aspects for best practices in search engine optimization and provided PoolDawg a blue print for optimal execution into the organic search channel.

The analysis also provided insights that a new site structure, with optimized design and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), would benefit PoolDawg.com’s exposure in the search engines.

In order to capitalize on the SEO, structural and functional opportunities, PoolDawg decided to utilize Netconcepts’ GravityMarket Search Optimized Ecommerce Solution. GravityMarket provided PoolDawg.com an optimal site design and on a robust, scalable, software infrastructure.

“After delivering our analysis to PoolDawg, Netconcepts realized that a new site structure would do good things for their business online. We are pleased to see that our recommendation to get a new infrastructure was correct and PoolDawg is realizing the return,” stated Jody Hartwig, Netconcepts’ Vice President of Ecommerce.

New ecommerce features for PoolDawg include:

• Best practices in design and navigation, including optimal CSS files
• A stream lined, 3 step checkout process
• Estimated shipping calculated in shopping cart page
• Featured Products RSS Feed
• Enhanced Content Management System

Results

Implementation of the recommendations from the SEO Analysis yielded a 300% increase in search engine traffic.

Now that the redesign has taken effect, PoolDawg currently receives page one rankings for the targeted search term, “pool cues.”

Attention to best practices in website design, and merchandising, has paid dividends as well. Since the redesign, PoolDawg has enjoyed a conversion rate increase of 27%.

The new site design, and capabilities work to maximize the consumers’ entire shopping experience and drive them through to complete an order.

Feiman commented, “We saw an overall increase of over 300% in our search engine traffic within the first 60 days of implementation. We are extremely pleased with our initial results and look forward to expanding our relationship with Netconcepts.”

(Be sure to check out PoolDawg’s Podcast with PRWeb and Netconcepts’ VP of Client Services, Jody Hartwig)

(Also be sure to check out PoolDawg’s testimonial for Netconcepts)

Watch Stephan and Eric’s webinar as a streaming Flash video »

Or, alternatively download/watch as a Quicktime (m4v) movie (169 MB) or as a Windows Media (wmv) file (59 MB).

Stephan Spencer and George Michie will share their expertise and tips for advanced search marketing, specific to the unique challenges that e-commerce marketers face. Stephan Spencer is a long-respected expert in search marketing and founder and President of Netconcepts. George Michie, a paid search veteran since the industry’s beginning, is Vice President of Client Services for The Rimm-Kaufman Group.

You Will Learn:

• Online acquisition economics
• Budgeting and planning for paid and organic search
• Strategies for competition with larger, better-funded competitors
• Strategies for your key search phrases from the “head” of the search distribution
• Strategies for the “long tail” of your search distribution
• When it may make sense to outsource elements of your search marketing effort, and when it may not
• The current legal and marketing issues surrounding use of trademarks and brand names

Problem:

TRUSTcite is a self-funded start-up that came to Netconcepts without having an online presence at all. They needed more than just a web developer. They needed guidance with their online strategy and with how they could differentiate themselves in the market. Their processes weren’t defined. Their functionality wasn’t defined. Their key differentiators weren’t all defined. And how they would market themselves online wasn’t defined either. They were looking or a partner to rise to the occasion: not just spend their money by building them a website, but to really think through what would make their business successful.

Netconcepts were mindful that the funding for the website was coming out of the founder’s savings, so we stretched every dollar.

It couldn’t just be a good website that worked. It had to be an exceptional website. We believe that by incorporating some of the latest Web 2.0 technologies into the site in such a way that was a showcase for Web 2.0 ‘done right’, we could gain additional visibility for them.

Solution:

The solution that Netconcepts came up with was a sophisticated yet intuitive Web 2.0 application and website leveraging the power of XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, PHP and MySQL. Some of the core concepts of this Web 2.0 website included leveraging the social networking aspects of the site, making it easy to build a network of referral sources and recommenders and make it easy for visitors to find and compare service providers based on referrals and recommendations from business people and past clients. Ranked search results are based on peer reviews and user feedback. Another founding principal of the site is the KISS principle: keep unimportant information/content hidden but still accessible. Search is the most important feature so it was important to keep that prominent and simple with smart top navigation separation and simple home page search.

Users have almost full control of what they can put in their profile: images, bold titles, lists, contact details and so on, ranging from simple and well structured with image, or simple with no images.

Web standards are mandatory, making the web better for everyone. Accessibility is not just for the blind. Web standards and best practice make for easily indexed pages. Semantic markup is a search engine’s favorite thing!

Starting with a basic working version of the site that works without JavaScript, we built on to that base from there, employing JavaScript to add to the user experience. For example, “progressive enhancement” was used to allow the site to display on less visually rich platforms such as cell phones and PDAs. On the home page, JavaScript was used to — in a search engine friendly way — make the full category list initially hidden but available with one click without reloading the page.

Results:

It is still early days, but several thousand pages of the site have been indexed in Google, and good media coverage has been obtained for the site in the New Zealand Herald. With no advertising to the general public and limited advertising within the B2B media, visitor numbers have grown four-fold, comparing May to October. What is more important, a growing number of visitors are returning to the site and are directing their clients to the site also.

Hannah Samuel, founder of TRUSTcite says:

“I approached Netconcepts regarding the development of TRUSTcite as I knew they were experts in the field of search engine optimisation (SEO) and had extensive experience in website development. However, what was more important to me initially was their e-commerce consultancy service which proved to be vital to the success of developing and launching TRUSTcite. Much like a pattern-maker, Netconcepts took my sometimes abstract, 2-dimensional ideas, and developed the patterns out of which the ‘fabric’ of TRUSTcite was created. It was amazing to see the concept become reality following ongoing discussion and recommendation.

As a new venture, it was vitally important that clear outcomes and costs were identified and monitored. This is something I found Netconcepts to be excellent at and I can’t recommend highly enough how well managed the whole project was. I certainly look forward to a continuing relationship with Netconcepts as they are truly excellent designers, developers, project managers, e-commerce advisors and all round neat people!”