Some useful information

Here is some useful information you need to be aware of on TamingTheBeast.net

Article writing endeavour update

Here's an update on my article writing endeavour. I have three articles that have been viewed 189 times. That's all well and good but if no one uses them then it's a waste of time. On the ezinearticles.com authors management page I can see how many time prublishers have requested to use my articles, only 5 have. That number seems a little low since I have excellent writing abilities and my articles are worth having (tongue in cheek). So I had the idea to copy the shortcut to google and just see how many times it comes up. I was amazed! Hundreds of times. Rss feeds and all. What people are doing is just copying the article from ezinearticles (my name included along with my url) and then pasting it to their site or else they are using a feed. Either way my name and my website are all over the net. If you haven't started writing articles I would suggest you do.

Link building tactics

Building links is an important part of ecommerce. In order to get your site listed organically in Google and others you must have high quality links. First you must use your keywords to find sites like yours (non-competing of course). Let’s say you sell fly fishing gear. You do a search for fly fishing and there are thousands of links. A little trick to use is to search the with the terms “fly fishing” + “add a site” (or add a link, link here, etc.). Once you do this you limit the sites listed to just the ones that may accept link trades or maybe even a directory. This trick makes quick work of link building.

My site listed on the front page of Shopster!

My friends at Shopster have seen fit to allow my website to grace their “Sample site” page. Lots of hits from this exposure. Shout out to ya Shopster! Thanks for this great opprtunity. If you would like to get involved you can go to Shopster.com and sign up for a free 7 day trial.

Organic Google

I’ve been working hard to get my site organically listed in Google and Yahoo. Well my efforts are paying off. Through Google Analytics I can see where certain keywords are yielding hits to my site. This ecommerce thing sure does take a lot of work. But it will be worth it in the end.

All you need to know about Google

Getting indexed in Google is the ultimate goal of e-preneurs. This is what I’ve learned so far. Don’t try. That’s right, don’t even try. If you’re what they’re looking for, they’ll find you. So what do you do? From what I’ve learned so far you must create usable, user friendly content. When people search, they are looking for information. If you give it, they will come. So what kind of content should we store owners provide? Well, start with product information. Write your own, do your own research, and don’t use what everyone else uses. Go to http://www.froogle.com and type in any kind of product name. Notice that the same items have the same descriptions most times. This is where you can set yourself apart. Next, give them information no one else is providing. This will take a lot of thought but they outcome will be worth it. Next, use keywords in your writing. Every product page should have keywords in headline sized, bold text. The robots love text so use it. Finally a word about links. Build them slowly, methodically, and deliberately. Don’t go out and submit your site to all the 10,000 free search engines. It’s not the number of links, it’s the quality. What i’ve done is researched my competition. I type in my keywords in Google and look at the top 5 sites. I then use the link://www.their-url.com feature in Google search and look at their links. That’s the links I want to target. It takes a lot of time but it will be well worth it in the end.

Article writing endeavour

I have heard a lot about writng articles for ezine publishing as a way of marketing your websites. I decided to go to ezinearticles.com and throw my hat in. I wrote an article and that evening I recieved an email stating that my article had been accepted and that I been given “Expert Author” status. Now that was funny! However, I do have the “Expert Author” icon posted on my site just to lend some credibility. If, and this is a big if, IF a few ezines decide to use my artice on their sites, I could begin to see a lot of traffic. i’ll keep you posted on how it’s going.

Google analytics

Wanna know more about your traffic? Get Google analytics at http://www.google.com/analytics/

It’s free and gives you a lot of useful information such as page views, unique visitors, and returning visitors. You also get to see where your traffic comes from.

DMOZ.org

I just checked with DMOZ.org to see if they have my site listed. They didn’t. It takes a while for them to get to you. But, one cool tool they have is a search tool to search the “major” search engines from one page. Well what do you know, my site Lampbargains.com is listed on all the major search engines. Google alone has 1280 pages indexed with the term “lampbargains” listed. What do you think are the highest ranked sites? You guessed it “Squidoo” and this blog. If you haven’t gotten on board, you better!

Google has caught up

After weeks of waiting to really get indexed for my keywords, Google has finally done it. Using a Google keyword checker, I have been checking every other day to see if my keywords had been indexed in Google. Today they are there. Ranked very low of course. If you’re looking to make a fast buck in this business you’re in for a surprise. It takes a long time. However, I’m not working nearly as hard as I have been. I actually took a little break from searching for links and adding content. I let Google come through the back door by writing this blog and my Squidoo lens. It just seems easier. Now of course I must step up the efforts to increase my rankings with good keyword rich content. I think i’ll do it by editing my product descriptions and adding to them. If I do ten a day I can add a lot of content in just a few short weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Winning with Squidoo

Squidoo has been called the “My Space” for adults. I guess the reasoning behind this is that it’s not a social network for the sake of being a social network, but a social network with a purpose. The purpose? Information. It’s About.com with a social network feel. So how do you use it toyour advantage in your online business. By being an expert. Become an expert on the products you sell, put your expert knowledge in your lens, and create sales. It’s very simple and that’s why it’s so popular. Oh and don’t forget to join all the groups that will let you in.

Costs of Google adwords

Google adwords allows you to set a specific budget, per month and per day when you set up an account. Each keyword you select has a specific cost for $.05 to infinity. It depends on what you would like to spend to have your ad show up. Now you can bid high enough to get the top ad position if you would like to but that’s usually not the way to go. Google has great tools to show you what to bid in order to get a specific position. A general rule is that you should bid to get the third, fourth, or fith positions. Some keywords will give you the top position for $.05 while others may cost you $5.00 to $10.00 or more! If you’re just beginning with adwords do what I’ve done. I put $50.00 in an adwords account, you can put less, the minimum is $5.00. I also set my daily budget to just $1.00. Why? Because I need to know which keywords I should bid more on, my average position for a keyword, and which keywords don’t work. By doing this I’ve also found some great niche keywords for future endeavors. For instance, I have two keywords that have given me over 2000 impressions in a little over a week. If I can target these keywords I will have success. Best yet, it only cost me $.05 to get a two or three position on the page. Keywords can be great, just remember it cost you every time someone clicks your add so make it count.

Are you content with your content?

I have no problems with designing my site. I like to do it. I have no problem surfing the net and researching. I like to do it. I even like to write (hence this blog). However, I seem to have the hardest time coming up with original keyword specific content for my site. It’s hard to elaborate on a lamp! I recently added some more content to my home page at www.lampbargains.com that I think is a good start. We really need to concentrate on this because that’s how we improve our rankings. Any fresh ideas out there on how to write good, original, content for products? All comments welcome.

Do you squidoo? I do!

I just started my Squidoo lens tonight at www.squidoo.com/lampbargains/ It’s very easy to do, it’s free, and it’s another way to get traffic. I personally think you’ll soon be hearing about people making a lot of money with Squidoo. How? Well you simply write a “lens” for any subject under the sky and they place ads on your lens. As people click on the Google ads you get 50% and you can even have it given to charity! I’m gonna research some subjects and write a bunch of lenses and see how it goes. It’s pretty fun and easy to do to.