StoresOnline Merchants Plan SEO Success for 2009

As 2008 wraps up, StoresOnline would like to thank the many StoresOnline Employees and StoresOnline Merchants who have contributed their time, talents, and positive energy to the cause of online entrepreneurship.

The New 2009 Year is before us. If you haven't made any New Year's Resolutions, there is still time. But for those of you StoresOnline Merchants who are busy thinking of what you can do to further boost your online business, let us direct you to the Google SEO Starter Guide. Every StoresOnline Site can use an SEO site audit to start the New Year off right.

Although Google is not the only search engine out there, it is an undeniable powerhouse for online search. Here is what Google has to say about their SEO Starter Guide:

"Webmasters often ask us at conferences or in the Webmaster Help Group, "What are some simple ways that I can improve my website's performance in Google?" There are lots of possible answers to this question, and a wealth of search engine optimization information on the web, so much that it can be intimidating for newer webmasters or those unfamiliar with the topic. We thought it'd be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites' crawlability and indexing.

Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. We felt that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, we also worked in many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid, and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. We plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current."

If you haven't read through the Google Search Engine Optmization Starter Guide, click here to download your copy today. StoresOnline wishes you a happy New Year!

StoresOnline SEO Tip: Link Building 101

StoresOnline Merchants are constantly researching ways to build their websites organically. Some of the best advice that StoresOnline can offer Merchants is to make time to work on some basic aspects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) such as making sure your Meta data is done right and that you are adding fresh, keyword relevant content to your StoresOnline website.

Another very important SEO aspect that you need to plan for is building links to your website. There are many different types of information out on the Internet about link building “do’s and don’ts” however a great resource that StoresOnline Merchants might want to check out is SEOChat.com forums. As an illustration of the type of information that you can find, here is a bit of a post about how to get more quality links to your StoresOnline website:

1. Build a “101 list”. These get Dugg all the time, and often become “authority documents”. People can’t resist linking to these.

2. Create 10 easy tips to help you [insert topic here] articles. Again, these are exceptionally easy to link to.

3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic

4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.

5. Create a list of gurus/experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the gurus may end up linking to your site or saying thanks.

6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can understand and spread your message.

7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.

8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.

9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you.News & Syndication.

10. Syndicate an article at EzineArticles, GoArticles, iSnare, etc. The great thing about good article sites is that their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.

11. Submit an article to industry news site. Have an SEO site? Write an article and submit to WebProNews. Have a site about BLANK? Submit to BLANKinformationalsite.com.

12. Syndicate a press release. Take the time to make it compelling and newsworthy. Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message. For good measure, submit it to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc.

With these tips on your side, a StoresOnline Merchant can avoid wasting precious time and effort on link strategies that might not be worth the work. StoresOnline wishe you the best as you continue to marketing your StoresOnline website.

StoresOnline & iMergent Have a New CEO

We want to keep you StoresOnline Merchants up to date on the most recent changes at StoresOnline. Many of you know that iMergent is the parent company of StoresOnline. A couple of weeks ago, a new CEO of iMergent was named. His name is Mr. Steven G. Mihaylo. Here is a news story we found that we thought you StoresOnline Merchants would want to read:

iMergent, Inc. a leading provider of eCommerce software for small businesses and entrepreneurs, announced changes to its management and board. Donald L. Danks resigned as CEO and as a director; he will become a consultant to the company. Steven G. Mihaylo assumed the role of CEO and has been appointed to the board of directors. The total board count remains six members.

Todd A. Goergen, Chairman of iMergent, stated, "The board is committed to driving iMergent's long-term growth and shareholder value. We are excited to welcome Steve who will be leading our company and exploring additional revenue opportunities in small-to-medium enterprise (SME) initiatives."

"In addition, we thank Don for his valued contribution as iMergent grew from less than $50 million in 2003 annual sales to exceed $125 million in fiscal 2008 under his leadership. Don will continue to assist management as a consultant in the area of investor relations," concluded Goergen.

Mihaylo, 64, is a retired chairman and chief executive officer of Inter-Tel, Incorporated, which he founded in 1969. He led the Inter-Tel evolution from providing business telephone systems to offering complete managed services and software that help businesses facilitate communication and increase customer service and productivity. Before selling Inter-Tel to Mitel for $720 million in 2007, Mihaylo grew the business to nearly $500 million in annual sales.

Mihaylo earned an honorary PhD from California State University - Fullerton and received a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration in Accounting & Finance from the university in 1969. He has served on boards of numerous community organizations including the Arizona Heart Foundation, Junior Achievement of Arizona, Arizona Museum of Science and Technology and the Arizona State University College of Business Dean's Council of 100. Committed to education, Mihaylo is involved with the Karl Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona and has served on the advisory board of Junior Achievement of Central Arizona for over 25 years, as a member of the board of directors of the Big Bear High School Education Foundation and on the Dean's Advisory Board of CSU-Fullerton.

For more information and news about the latest changes at StoresOnline, please feel free to visit the StoresOnline Press Release Blog.

Another Great StoresOnline Merchant Resource

We usually bring our StoresOnline Merchants news about Search Engine Optimization and other helpful online business tips. We came across this website, StoresOnlineMerchant.com that has a lot of great StoresOnline Merchant information. There is a little bit of everything here: from SEO tips to Internet Marketing advice.

Here is an article that might help StoresOnline Merchants as strategically reorganize their internet marketing efforts in preparation for the holiday season:

StoresOnline Merchants Internet Marketing Tips
Injecting Internet Marketing Into Your Marketing Mix

A StoresOnline Website and online presence is one aspect of the marketing mix for a business. For the small to medium business, there is no reason for a StoresOnline Website to be the sole method of marketing – but by integrating a StoresOnline Website into your marketing plan you can drive new leads and generate new business that you wouldn't ordinarily reach using a single avenue of advertising. Web Address Inclusion Your StoresOnline Website can act as a point of reference for all of your leads and existing customers. Include your web address in all forms of your offline communication.

If you post physical products, ensure that the packing slips and invoices have the URL of your StoresOnline Website in a prominent position. Your StoresOnline Website itself can be used to answer many questions that customers might have, reducing the time and even resource needed to respond to problems and questions posed by buyers.

StoresOnline Internet Marketing Idea 1
Optimizing Landing Pages For On And Offline Leads
With any form of advertising it is vital to optimize your web landing pages. Optimizing a landing page means providing the content that your visitors expect. You should direct visitors to the most appropriate page on your StoresOnline Website to answer their questions or to make a sale. If you use direct mail advertising and are promoting a specific product then direct visitors to the purchase page for that product. If you are offering your StoresOnline Website as a place to get answers to questions or to resolve issues, direct them to the knowledge base or customer service page.

StoresOnline Internet Marketing Idea 2
Using Online Advertising To Advertise Offline
Business While some businesses are run predominantly online, many StoresOnline Websites are used to promote a bricks-and-mortar business. Whatever the purpose of your business, a StoresOnline Website usually offers some form of advantage. The Internet is a global marketplace and provides a genuinely affordable method to promote even the smallest business. Very few other methods level the playing field so clearly between small businesses and large corporations.

StoresOnline Internet Marketing Idea 3
Using Other Forms Of Offline Advertising In Your Advertising Mix
Newspaper and radio advertising provide a very direct form of marketing. Few StoresOnline Websites can realistically afford television advertising but flyers, direct mail, and less expensive advertising methods are a genuinely viable alternative. Again, the key to success in using these forms of advertising is integrating them within your online marketing mix. Only through good integration, directing visitors to the most appropriate page, and optimizing that landing page.

StoresOnline Internet Marketing Summary
Every business requires a good marketing mix. As well as considering the various forms of online marketing, such as SEO and PPC, the StoresOnline Website owner should consider integrating offline advertising into their mix. Direct prospective leads to pre-sell and sales pages to improve conversion rates or, alternatively, direct existing customers to support and technical pages to improve your customer relations and therefore enhance customer retention levels. By getting the balance of offline and online advertising right, your marketing mix will help provide everything you need to gain leads, increase sales, improve customer retention, and rocket your profits.

Visit StoresOnlineMerchant.com today for more helpful StoresOnline Merchant information.

StoresOnline Merchants: Marketing for the Holidays

At StoresOnline, we follow Small Business Forums and Search Engine Marketing blogs in order to provide StoresOnline Merchants with up to date information and entrepreneurial information. As the holiday season picks up, StoresOnline wanted to share some helpful online marketing information with you from SmallBusinessNewz.com:

How Are Small Businesses Marketing For the Holidays?

"To me, it seems that marketing has never been more important for the survival of a business. For one, if you are not marketing, people might forget about you, or even assume that your business in trouble because they have not heard from you lately," I said. "Marketing shows potential customers that you are still there for them even in these rocky times. Secondly, you have to drive people to your business. How else do you intend to attract customers?"

Well, a new study from Constant Contact would suggest that most U.S. small businesses would agree with this mentality, particularly as we approach the holiday season. 76% of their respondents are planning holiday promotions and last minute shopping offers. This number has actually grown from the same survey last year, which saw 62% doing so. 63% of this year's respondents have even begun their holiday campaigns already.

"There's no question the economy is a cause for concern, especially for U.S. small businesses that rely heavily on holiday sales," says Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman. "However, in true entrepreneurial fashion, small businesses are fighting back. Small businesses recognize the value of focusing their marketing efforts to enhance communication with their loyal customers, as well as to attract new business."

So what ways are businesses marketing themselves these days?"

According to the study, 60% of respondents will be using Email Marketing. For the breakdown of other marketing outlets that small business merchants will be using, click here and read the article in its entirety.

What types of marketing work for you as a StoresOnline Small Business Owner? If you have other studies or research that would be helpful for StoresOnline Merchants, please feel free to leave a comment.

StoresOnline Business Resources for StoresOnline Merchants

If you are a StoresOnline Merchant who needs assistance or has questions about StoresOnline Products and Services, here are a few StoresOnline Website Resources that you'll want to visit and bookmark:

Frequently Asked Questions About StoresOnline Express

How Does the StoresOnlinePro Software Technology Work?

What Are A Few of The StoresOnlinePro Software Features?

Where Can I Get 24/7 StoresOnline Merchant Support?

Who Can Help Me Program My StoresOnline Website?

I Need a Logo for My StoresOnline Business

Who is A StoresOnline Success Merchant?

Where Can I Find A StoresOnline Merchant Review?

How Does StoresOnline's Customer Service Rate?

Where Can I Learn More About Blogging for My StoresOnline Website?

Where Can I Interact With Other StoresOnline Merchants?

Where Can I Read About Other StoresOnline Customer Service Experiences?

Are There Other Blog Resources That Talk About StoresOnline?

Is There A Merchant Resource Gives StoresOnline Updates?

Do you know of other StoresOnline Resources
for StoresOnline Merchants?

StoresOnline Merchants Focus on Customer Service

StoresOnline Customer Service teams are constantly supporting, educating, and assisting StoresOnline Merchants. StoresOnline is dedicated to excellence in Customer Support as is evidenced by the Service & Support Professional Association's 2007 Award to StoresOnline for outstanding Consumer Support as well as the many thank you emails that are received every week from StoresOnline Merchants.

There are ways for you to set your online business apart through the quality of customer service you offer your StoresOnline website visitors. Here are a few tips as a Customer Service 101 refresher:

Be a good listener. Take the time to identify customer needs by asking questions and concentrating on what the customer is really saying. Listen to their words, tone of voice, body language, and most importantly, how they feel. Beware of making assumptions - thinking you intuitively know what the customer wants. Do you know what three things are most important to your customer?

Effective listening and undivided attention are particularly important on the show floor where there is a great danger of preoccupation - looking around to see to whom else we could be selling to.

Identify and anticipate needs. Customers don't buy products or services. They buy good feelings and solutions to problems. Most customer needs are emotional rather than logical. The more you know your customers, the better you become at anticipating their needs. Communicate regularly so that you are aware of problems or upcoming needs.

Make customers feel important and appreciated. Treat them as individuals. Always use their name and find ways to compliment them, but be sincere. People value sincerity. It creates good feeling and trust. Think about ways to generate good feelings about doing business with you. Customers are very sensitive and know whether or not you really care about them. Thank them every time you get a chance.

On the show floor be sure that your body language conveys sincerity. Your words and actions should be congruent.

Help customers understand your systems. Your organization may have the world's best systems for getting things done, but if customers don't understand them, they can get confused, impatient and angry. Take time to explain how your systems work and how they simplify transactions. Be careful that your systems don't reduce the human element of your organization.

Appreciate the power of "Yes". Always look for ways to help your customers. When they have a request (as long as it is reasonable) tell them that you can do it. Figure out how afterwards. Look for ways to make doing business with you easy. Always do what you say you are going to do.

Know how to apologize. When something goes wrong, apologize. It's easy and customers like it. The customer may not always be right, but the customer must always win. Deal with problems immediately and let customers know what you have done. Make it simple for customers to complain. Value their complaints. As much as we dislike it, it gives us an opportunity to improve. Even if customers are having a bad day, go out of your way to make them feel comfortable.

Give more than expected. Since the future of all companies lies in keeping customers happy, think of ways to elevate yourself above the competition. Consider the following:

- What can you give customers that they cannot get elsewhere?
- What can you do to follow-up and thank people even when they don't buy?
- What can you give customers that is totally unexpected?

Get regular feedback. Encourage and welcome suggestions about how you could improve. There are several ways in which you can find out what customers think and feel about your services.

- Listen carefully to what they say.
- Check back regularly to see how things are going.
- Provide a method that invites constructive criticism, comments and suggestions.

Treat employees well. Employees are your internal customers and need a regular dose of appreciation. Thank them and find ways to let them know how important they are. Treat your employees with respect and chances are they will have a higher regard for customers. Appreciation stems from the top. Treating customers and employees well is equally important.

What are customer service activities that you as a StoresOnline Merchant have used to help create value?

StoresOnline Merchant Help Forum

This blog was started as a place for StoresOnline Merchants and others to find helpful information about starting, building, and maintaining your online business. From time to time, we search the Internet for other helpful resources for you. Today we came upon a very helpful tool for StoresOnline Merchants: The StoresOnline Merchant Help Forum.

The StoresOnline Merchant Help Forum offers help and ideas on the following subjects:

- StoresOnlinePro software
- Avail 24/7 Software
- Marketing
- StoresOnlineExpress software

There is also a section for free webinars for StoresOnline Merchants. The thing that we liked the most about this forum was how they described it: "StoresOnline's Help Forums are here to help you. Ask and answer. StoresOnline will monitor these forums for common problems and great suggestions! Please help us improve our product by taking part in the sharing of information. Click on the link to the right to sign up, then click on the discussion group you want top browse on the left. Click here to sign in and join the conversation. It's quick, easy and free!"

It looks like this is just another way that StoresOnline is working to support Merchants and Online Entrepreneurs. We encourage you to sign up today and let us know about your experience with the StoresOnline Merchant Help Forum.

StoresOnline Merchant Spotlight: JonesTShirts.com

StoresOnline has many successful merchants who want to share their experiences about their StoresOnline businesses. The following item was emailed in from Scott Jones of JonesTShirts.com:

"I have had my site up on StoresOnline for about 3 years. I sell wholesale blank t-shirts as well as some other lines of apparel. Things didn't immediately take off but with some time and effort put into marketing, it is on it's way to being my full time income. I am on page one for my main keyword phrases on Google, MSN and Yahoo. Almost every month the visitors and sales seem to increase.

The software is top of the line and very easy to use especially with the help of online chat or the phone support line. All of the marketing strategies that I have used were learned from reading through the amazing amount of material made available to StoresOnline merchants.

I recently launched another site selling wholesale hats and things seem a little easier the second time around since I feel like I really know what I am doing now. Sales have started to trickle in already on the hat site but I still have plenty of marketing that I need to do. I could not be happier about the way things have gone with my websites and my experiences with StoresOnline.

Scott J."

We noticed that JonesTShirts.com is also taking advantage of using a blog to talk about special offers etc. If you don't think you have much to talk about with your product, take a look at the JonesTShirts.com blog. You'll see that there are things to blog about and that the blog can be just one more means of reaching out to potential customers. The idea of the blog is get the word out and get more traffic back to your StoresOnline Site. It's a great idea and an easy way to keep fresh information up for your customers.

If you have a StoresOnline Merchant Success Story that you'd like to share, leave a post here and we'll get in touch with you to get your online business spotlighted!

StoresOnline Merchants: Competitive Research Tools

StoresOnline Merchants spend a good amount of time finding products and building their websites. Once the website is ready for online marketing, it is important for the StoresOnline Merchant to get an idea of what the competition is doing to market their products and services online. Here is a list of SEO tools that can help a StoresOnline Merchant do marketing research:

Alexa - shows traffic trends for competing websites. Alexa has a heavy webmaster bias that is nowhere near as noticeable at Compete or Quantcast.

Compete.com - shows you traffic trends for competing websites. Allows you to compare sites head to head. Also offers a paid search analytics tool which is both exceptionally useful and affordably priced.

Quantcast - shows site traffic and demographic trends and details. Also allows you to download a list of their top 1,000,000 websites.

Google Trends for Websites - free tool from Google showing traffic estimates, visitor country location, top 10 related websites, and top 10 related keywords. Only returns data for fairly high traffic websites though.

Google Search Insights - shows keyword trends, hot keywords by cateogry, and top geographic regions for a keyword.

Archive.org - see how old a website is and what it looked like in the past

DomainTools - see Whois data and how many times a domain has changed hands

SearchStatus - highlights nofollow links, shows PageRank, shows Alexa rank, and provides links to some backlink information

Xinu - lists some SEO related data plus more general web related data points like Alexa ranking and Del.icio.us bookmarks.

Research the Competition's Keyword Strategy
View our keyword research tools section, or use some of the following free tools to get a view of their keyword strategy.

Keyword Density Analysis Tool - finds common words and phrases on your site, or competing websites.

Page Comparison Tool - tool compares the page titles, meta information, and most common two and three word phrases between different pages. grab the source code Page Text Rank Checker - tool allows you to check where your site ranks for each phrase or term occurring on the page. grab the source code

Common Terms Keyword Rankings Tool - shows where your page ranks for it's most common terms. grab the source code

Spider Test Tool - shows the page size, source code, meta tags, page title, textual copy of the page, keyword breakdown by density (including 2 and 3 word phrases), number of words, number of unique words, and outbound links on a page.

Research the Competition's Link Strategy
View our link analysis section, or use some of the following free tools to get a view of their link strategy.

SEO Book Competitive Research & Keyword Research Gadget - use almost every useful competitive research tool from our free gadget. You can place this gadget on your site or on iGoogle.

Back Link Analyzer - free Windows based downloadable software allowing you to deeply explore through a competitor's backlinks.

Link Harvester - web based tool that allows you to dig deeply through a competitor's backlinks

Link Popularity Comparison Tool - allows you to quickly and easily compare your link popularity scores to other websites.

Myriad Search - allows you to search all 4 major search engines at the same time.

Competition Finder - tool looks at how many competing pages there are in Google's index that have your desired keywords in their page title and anchor text. learn more about Competition Finder

SEO Link Analysis Script - extend Yahoo! Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Central using this free script from Joost De Valk. It verifies the link is still on the page, adds PageRank scores, displays anchor text, and highlights if the link uses nofollow.

Search Engine Saturation Tool - helps you compare how many pages you have in the search indexes compared against competing sites. grab the source code

From the Search Engines
Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool - allows you to plug in a URL and shows you what keywords Google thinks the page should be advertising for Google Traffic Estimator - estimates the number of Google AdWords ad clicks and bid prices for the top ad position.

Google AdWords - if you bid broad match on competing brands you can track your ad impressions to see how much traffic they get.

Google AdSense - if your competitor is running AdSense ads on their site you can run a site targeted ad to see how much traffic they are getting.

Yahoo Mindset - let Yahoo show you how they can change results for commercial and informational queries

Yahoo Term Extraction - delivers a list of most important keywords contained inside a piece of text.

MSN AdCenter Labs - offers many keyword tools, including a content classification tool and demographic prediction tools

These may be more advanced competitive research methods for some beginning online business owners, but try to get started with one or two aspects of competitive research. It could give you a whole new perspective on your target market and your marketing direction as well.

If you have other SEO tools that you'd like to suggest to other StoresOnline Merchants, leave us a message here :)