Growing Your Online Business

How Web 2.0 Are You?

Do you know how many people are linking to your site, bookmarking your site, or subscribing to your blog? A few websites out there can help you find what sort of social media activity is buzzing around your business, website, or brand name.

Below are a handful of websites that can help you determine just how Web 2.0 you really are.

• www.google.com/trends can tell you how many times your business has been searched. You can also use it to track how popular keyword terms are and compare terms against each other.
• www.popuri.us is a tool to quickly glance at the popularity of your site across the Internet, or in other orders, how many people are linking to your site.
• http://del.icio.us/url is a search engine to find out how many people have bookmarked your site on del.icio.us.
• www.twitterment.com is a search engine for Twitter, the popular microblogging site. Use it to find out how many times your brand name has been mentioned (and what was said) in Twitter messages.

Jenny

Google Checkout Extends "No Fees" Promotion

Google Checkout allows buyers to register a credit card with Google and then purchase safely from registered sellers without having to re-enter private information. This model typically charges the seller a transaction fee and a percentage of the sale. To help push user adoption, Google Checkout has been free for both buyers and sellers in 2007. This was supposed to change at the end of the year, but Google has announced that the deadline has been extended to February 1^st 2008.

Sellers using both Google Checkout and Google AdWords have another incentive; for every $1 spent on AdWords, sellers can process $10 in purchases at no additional cost. After that, each transaction will be charged the standard price of $.20 and 2% of the total sale.

JLow

Green Monday is Money

Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, has unofficially been termed the busiest online shopping day of the year, but eBay, PayPal and Shopping.com say “Green Monday” (as in money, not the environment) is actually the busiest. Since 2001, the second Monday of December has been the largest online shopping day of the year, and eBay coined the term after seeing this trend for the past few years.

Cyber Monday is still a strong days, especially since more than 72% of online retailers planned a Cyber Monday promotion (BusinessWeek.com, 11/26/07), according to a Shop.org survey.

The next big Monday for holiday sales is December 17^th—the last day for ground shipping to be guaranteed by Christmas. Many holiday shoppers are predicted to purchase last-minute gifts before the shipping deadline.

We want to know what you think. Is Cyber Monday or Green Monday the busier shopping day for your online business?

Jenny

How to Wait Until the Last Minute

This post strays a little from the norm.  Today I am going to write for the buyer, as a buyer – which all of us are this time of year.

For those of us who like to shop at the last minute (regardless of how long our list has been written), here is a tip about finding the best prices on eBay!  Since we are nearing the last day that ground shipping will make it on time, this could be your one shot at getting that elusive gift (at a good price)!

Using an eBay Market Research tool will help you, as a buyer, find the best time to bid on items.  Even though it isn’t what the tools are designed for, it sure is a handy application.  Tools like HammerTap or Terapeak allow you to run a search of keywords for popular products and see when the products are selling for the highest, and more importantly, the lowest prices.  Say you are looking for a new digital camera – you are probably shopping at the same time everyone else is – and you keep failing to win the auctions.  Find the time when the camera is selling for the lowest price, locate some auctions that end during that time – and get to winning!

And for the seller, you should be doing just the opposite – search for the products, find the best times to end your listings!  And for those of you who use Marketplace Manager – don’t forget you have HammerTap built right in!  It can be accessed when you are editing inventory or on the Reports tab.  You know I couldn’t write without a plug for MM!

dmp

It's In The Title

One of the most important SEO factors on your page is your page title. There is no other magic bullet that will shoot you to the top of the search engine result pages. It's a combination of many things done just right, and it may be a different combination for different industries.

With that said, here are some tips to optimizing your page titles.

1. A title should be less than 64 characters
2. Put important keywords into your title
3. Do not keyword spam
4. Put keywords first and your company name last
    ipods, ipod speakers and accessories|ipodwarehouse.com
5. Make sure page titles are unique to every page

There are many things you can do on a page to help SEO results, but this is probably the most important place to start.

Jason

Targeted E-Mail Using Email Profiles

A recent Internet Retailer monthly survey (http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=24246) focused the on holiday expectations of 191 online retailers reported the following:

“E-mail is retailers’ top marketing and advertising tool this Christmas, especially segmented campaigns that target groups with special offers. A total of 61.7% of merchants in the survey list more e-mail marketing as their best chance to reach shoppers.”

The Email Profiles tool in Marketplace Manager can create extremely segmented email campaigns by targeting buyers who purchased a single SKU or from a specific category. Additionally, using Marketplace Manager’s Coupon Manager allows creating coupons for specific categories or specific SKUs.

Some examples: if someone previously purchased a cell phone, then send an electronic coupon discounting accessories specific to their phone. If someone purchased a game console, then send a coupon for all the newest games. If someone purchased a blouse, then send a coupon for matching jewelry.

Utilizing both Email Profiles and Coupons allows retailers to create highly targeted campaigns that let holiday buyers enjoy exclusive deals.

JLow