It’s a pet peeve of mine: visiting an e-commerce web site and their copyright date is from last year – or even worse, it’s from 4 or 5 years ago. To me, that’s the sign of a web site that is not ‘fresh’ or updated. Certainly Google and the other search engines are paying attention as well.
Some software platforms will automatically update the copyright date on your website for you at the stroke of midnight on 12/31 each year, but there are still many others that it is a manual task. However, just because it’s a manual task doesn’t mean that it should be overlooked. Take a second now and look at the bottom of your web site in the footer. What does it say? If it doesn’t say Copyright 2012 – it’s time to change it.
Written by Pat
January 26th, 2012
The eBay message boards are filled with posts by sellers about how eBay’s new Best Match has taken seller’s items and made them nearly invisible to buyers. The result, of course, is a decrease in sales.
Trying to adapt to Best Match is a challenge for sellers and although time and energy should be put into maximizing Best Match results another essential course of action for eBay sellers is to rely less on eBay driving buyers to your listings and figuring out ways to drive buyers to your listings yourself.
I have compiled a list of ways to drive buyers to your listings to supplement Best Match. If any readers have any additional methods, please add them to the list.
Google Base Store Connector
Use Google Base Store Connector to get your listings indexed in Google Search results. Here is a link to the free program that will send your eBay listing info to Google: http://base.google.com/base/storeconnector/index.html
Alt Img Tags
This is a little bit of HTML code that you add to the photos that you have within your eBay listing. Search engines can only read text. If you add this little bit of descriptive HTML code to your images, your images have a descriptive text attached to them and this can possibly aid in increasing your listing’s search engine ranking and Google Image Search ranking.
Continue Reading January 26th, 2009
Wouldn’t it be nice to be automatically notified when your website has a new page indexed in Google, or when someone links to your site? Well this is very easy to do using the Google Alerts Beta! Here are the instructions for setting up a site wide Google index update Alert and a site wide link alert.
Create an alert for when a page on your site gets indexed:
- Go to www.google.com/alerts.
- For search terms enter (without quotes) “site:yourdomain.com”.
- Make sure you do not use a www or other subdomain.
- Select Web as the type.
- For “How often” we will select “as-it-happens”. I like this because this tells you exactly when Google is crawling your site!
- Enter the email you want the alert sent to.
- Click “Create Alert”.
- Confirm the alert from the email Google send you and you are set!
Create an alert that notifies you when another website links to your website:
- Go to www.google.com/alerts.
- For search terms enter (without quotes) “link:yourdomain.com”.
- Make sure you do not use a www or other subdomain.
- Select Comprehensive as the type. This will allow you to be notified with links in Blogs and groups as well as other websites in general.
- For “How often” we will select “once a week”. If you start noticing a lot of entries you can go to the once a day and then as-it-happens settings.
- Enter the email you want the alert sent to.
- Click “Create Alert”.
- Confirm the alert from the email Google send you and you are set!
Now you will know WHO is linking to you and WHEN!
Chuck
March 17th, 2008
Howdy. Day 2 was very fast paced – my head is still spinning from all the information that was presented by the speakers as well as conversation with other members.
Upon registration, some of us received canvas tote bags compliments of BuySafe with the IMA logo on one side and the BuySafe Logo on the other. In my bag was the book “eBay Power Seller Secrets- 2nd Edition” by Debra and Brad Schepp. This was exciting to me as I am quoted in this book! I will be available for signings later today 
The first presentation was given by Matt Singer of TalkMarket – How to Create an Effective Video Presentation. We learned tips and tricks to create an effective video designed to keep the potential buyers attention and convert them to a sale. Video marketing is the new internet marketing vehicle. If you’re not doing it – it is something you need to seriously consider!
The next presentation was by Justin from Google – Optimize your Existing Adwords Account to Increase ROI. This was a very fast paced presentation that was very technical. IMA will be obtaining the PDF presentation to post to our members. Because this was a very technical presentation, I can’t say I understood everything, but I took lots of notes because I know this information will come in handy down the road. Others who are using Google Adwords were amazed to find out they were not using all of the tools at their disposal.
The next two presentations I missed as I was working on my video for TalkMarket. They were the Wall Street Panel and SEO by OrangeSoda Marketing. Hopefully we’ll get some other attendees to write about these presentations.
While I was practicing for my TalkMarket video guess who walked into the room? Ina from AuctionBytes! It was exciting to meet her and talk to her. She said she will follow up with me to possibly include a link to my video in one of her blogs or newsletters! Also helping me was a very nice lady from Vendio, Crystal & Darol from 4Ever Funky Footwear. I haven’t seen my video yet as they were still editing it last night, but I’m very excited about it. Several attendees had videos made and we will hopefully see them today.
The last presentation was the KeyNote Address by eBay. Unfortunately, Stephanie Tilenius was unable to make it, so the presentation was given by Jim Ambach, VP Seller Experience. He did a great job. This presentation talked a lot about the recent changes that have been made by eBay as well as the future changes they’ve already announced. I got the distinct feeling that eBay IS listening to sellers, although they may not agree with everything sellers believe should happen. I also believe that eBay is trying to bring back buyer with these changes.
That sums it up for Day 2.
Cyn
March 4th, 2008