In this article on Multichannel Merchant, Netconcepts founder and President Stephan Spencer sits down with Amy Africa to review Old Pueblo Traders, an eCommerce clothing site. Stephan’s contribution discusses key concepts in SEO like this one:
In my brief tour of Oldpueblotraders.com, I found plenty of opportunities for major traffic gains through search engine optimization. The first one became immediately obvious as I was loading the home page. Directing my Web browser to load http://www.oldpueblotraders.com/, I was immediately redirected to http://www.oldpueblotraders.com/pagebuilder/.
Unfortunately, the type of redirect used was a temporary one (302) instead of a permanent one (301). I discovered this through the use of a server header checker (http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/tools/server-header.php) A 301 redirect passes PageRank and link popularity to the destination URL, whereas a 302 redirect does not. Luckily, this is an easy thing to fix.
For more about this eCommerce website audit, visit the original article on Multichannel Merchant here.
If you want to subject your visitors to quizzes or personality tests, then this WordPress plugin is what you’ve been looking for! WordPress Quiz Plugin is a platform for any kind of quiz. The plugin currently comes with only quiz type: the personality quiz, but if you have other quiz needs it’s easily adapted. In fact, if you’d like to contribute other quiz types, we’ll add them to the distribution.
(If upgrading from a prior version of the WordPress Quiz Plugin, be sure to deactivate the old version beforehand.)
Upload the wordpress-quiz-plugin directory and the files within it to your wp-content/plugins directory.
Activate the plugin.
To-do
Include more quiz types
Tracking of results
Additional types of code snippits
Feedback?
Got a bug to report? Or an enhancement to recommend? Or perhaps even some code to submit for inclusion in the next release? Great! Share your feedback in the comments below.
In this edition of the SEO report card, Jeff Muendel reviews eCommerce site pinkorpunk.com. This niche eCommerce site sells accessories that (you guessed it) are either pink or punk. This website audit is especially helpful for other new eCommerce sites, since pinkorpunk.com launched quite recently. Here’s a little bit about what Jeff has to say about this unique boutique.
Pinkorpunk.com is a fairly new website, which may partially explain its PageRank of 0. But, the other factor in the ranking is the site’s small number of inbound links. Yahoo! sees 45 links from outside sites while Google doesn’t list any at all. Inbound links translate to PageRank, and higher PageRank translates to better search engine results. This site, with its vibrant content, should have no problem garnering links! A linking campaign is in order here. Research online directories and get listed in those that still have decent PageRank (many have been recently demoted by Google in that regard). A blog is also in order, especially with such hip content. Online press should be a target as well, as should social media avenues like MySpace, Flickr and Facebook.
For more about this niche eCommerce store, visit the Practical eCommerce website audit here.
Do you know what the difference is between SEO and online marketing? Confused about the terminology? In this article featured on Practical eCommerce, Jeff Muendel discusses how SEO is a specialty within the online marketing field.
By definition, SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website with the goal of having major search engines (primarily Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live Search) return pages from that website in highly-ranked search engine results. SEO is almost always employed as a form of marketing, but it is a very specific form of marketing that takes place within the search engines.
Lately, some industry blogs have suggested that SEO has grown beyond its primary parameters, suggesting that successful SEO includes expanding into other realms of marketing. I don’t think that makes any sense. By definition, SEO – search engine optimization – does not include any form of marketing that goes outside of search engines. The use of the term SEO in such a way is disingenuous and confuses many webmasters and owners of ecommerce sites.
For more about this controversial topic, visit the full article on Practical eCommerce here.
Are you interested in doing some content optimization for your website? Do you know the difference between keyword suggestion tools and keyword analytics tools? In this article, written by Director of Natural Search Consulting PJ Fusco, learn about how keyword suggestion tools can really help boost the quality of your content optimization. PJ defines Keyword analytics tools as:
Keyword suggestion tools help you understand what words are used in search queries and what phrases are associated with those words. Keyword analytical tools provide some measure of keyword suggestion functionality, as well as the ability to understand the competition levels for specific search terms. More importantly, keyword analytics tools help you determine the relative size of the search referral market associated with specific keywords and phrases.
Read more about keyword analytics tools and how effective they might be for your site in this article at ClickZ here.
Jacqui Jones, Lead Consultant from Netconcepts, sits down with Jeremy Wood from Google to talk about Google Gadgets and Gadget Ads in this nine minute interview. Jeremy provides some helpful hints and tips for marketers and developers on how to get the most out of Gadgets and Gadget Ads, including tips on how to get your Gadget listed with Google.
Ok, perhaps I’m being a bit provocative here, but sometimes it’s the off-topic, off-message, or off-brand content that earns you the most valuable links—links that you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. Those links can really pay the bills, in terms of the extra search traffic and resulting sales. The brand police within your company may pitch a fit, but heck, it’ll be worth it! Here’s how it’s done:
In her article on content optimization, Director of Natural Search Consulting PJ Fusco discussed how important it was to have keyword themes. As she mentions in this article, where she reviews different keyword suggestion tools on ClickZ, PJ writes, “to be found for the right words on any site, you must undergo regular, extensive keyword research to understand what words people use when they search for your goods and services.”
From Google Trends to Quintura, get an inside look at these free keyword suggestion tools that can help you with content optimization for your site. Read the full review of these tools at ClickZ here.
I’ve run across a number of local business sites which offer event calendars of some sort, and many of these companies may not be aware that they can and should add hCalendar Microformat to their pages to further optimize them for both search and user experience. I’ve previously recommended hCard Microformat for optimizing local business sites, and hCalendar can offer similar advantages, particularly as the evolution of blended search results continues.
In this month’s edition of the SEO Report Card on Practical eCommerce, Netconcepts Jeff Muendel takes an in-depth look at Seenon.com, a celebrity fashion site. From home page content to what Jeff calls “an attractive and aggressive design,” this is a good website audit to read for the trendy and stylish.
This month’s report card website is Seenon.com, an ecommerce site that tracks the fashion tendencies of the famous and sells those garments and accoutrements to interested consumers. The site is pleasant to the eye and has an exciting, almost urgent feel to it, but how does it do in terms of search engine optimization? Not bad at all actually, and to that end, I thought it would serve as a good example of attractive and aggressive design that does not come at the expense of SEO.
