To obtain good organic rankings in the search engines, web pages need inbound links. This is because search engines look for some way to determine how to rank one page over another. They look for some sort of indication of quality, some sort of "approval" that one ecommerce product page, for example, is more "important" than another product page. But how do you demonstrate that your product page is more important than the same product on another web page (perhaps your competitor is selling the same product)? One way to do this is to get links to your product page. Create Content to Drive In-bound Links That's where creating content can be a big asset. Create content (photos, video, and articles), publish it on other websites (or on yo...

If you are spending too much money for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, then you likely have considered moving away from PPC and towards organic search results. After all, if you rank well in the organic, or natural, search results, you can spend a lot less money on PPC. But how do you do that? In this article, I will explore a strategy for spending less on PPC while maintaining traffic and sales. Identify Good Keywords First, I do not recommend going cold turkey on PPC. Do not stop all PPC advertising and expect that your search engine optimization efforts are going to take over and maintain your current traffic and sales level. It takes time to transition to great organic search engine rankings. The first step is to identify the keyw...

Having videos of your products will help your ecommerce sales. Visitors to your site will watch the videos, and it will presumably help their buying decisions. But what about the search engines? How will posting a product video on your website help with search engine optimization? One factor that the search engines may be considering as a part of their search algorithms is the "time on site," the amount of time that your visitors spend on your website. If you post a video about a product, you can significantly increase the "time on site" factor inasmuch as, well, it takes time to watch your videos. I do not know for certain that the amount of time spent on your website is a search engine ranking factor, but it could be. The search engi...

Editor?s Note: Bill Hartzer is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and the owner of BillHartzer.com, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared in that company?s blog. Keyword research is one of the most important parts of online marketing. Sometimes we don?t realize just how much of a difference it can make in the overall success of a search engine marketing campaign or even the success of an online business. It?s my belief that the keyword phrase?the term that a searcher types into the search engine when they?re searching?can make or break an online business. Target the wrong keyword phrases and an online business is destined to fail. Domain names by themselves are no longer the mos...

Google has made some major changes to its search results recently, adding more options for searchers. These are not changes to search algorithms, which determine the websites that show up, and where. Rather, the new changes give searchers options that allow them to tailor the type of search results that they see. To help you navigate through these changes and what it really means for your ecommerce business, let's look at sample search results and focus on what your site can do to appear in them. For example, let's focus on one keyword, "toys." New Three-column Format If you look at the search results for the keyword "toys," you will see three columns. On the left side, under the Google logo, there are several different types of se...

I recently spoke at an Internet marketing conference about that state of search engine optimization in 2010. One of the points that I made during the presentation is that search engines and social media networks are converging. In 2010, if you want to rank well in the search engines, you need to start combining your efforts. Search engine optimization is not what it used to be. Sure, we still need to get the more "trusted" links in your industry, and hopefully by now you already have done that. You may, in fact, already be ranking well in the search engines and doing quite a good job. But what can you do to use Google and the social media websites to stay ahead of your competition and start securing even better organic search engine ra...

Editor?s Note: Bill Hartzer is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and the owner of BillHartzer.com, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared in that company?s blog. If you want to use search engine optimization best practices, or want to get updated on the latest search engine optimization techniques, there are a lot of good SEO resources to keep you up-to-date. If you?re confused already about search engine optimization, here are my expert thoughts about search engine optimization in 2010, based on my experience. First off, before I go any further, I need to explain what I mean when I say "search engine optimization" (SEO). It means getting your website noticed in the search engin...

Editor?s Note: Bill Hartzer is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and the owner of BillHartzer.com, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared on his website, BillHartzer.com. Are you using search engine optimization tactics that lead to overkill? You may not think so, but according to SEO experts at the Search Engine Strategies conference held recently in Chicago, Ill., you might be using what is called ?SEO Overkill.? Focus on What's Important According to Mike Murray of Fathom SEO, SEO is not a shopping spree. You need website traffic, but you need to pace yourself?even sound practices may fail if they?re rushed. When picking a domain name, short names are easy to read, but if y...

Editor's Note: This is our monthly installment of "Everything Google," a feature on products and services from Google that can help ecommerce merchants. The author is Bill Hartzer, the owner of BillHartzer.com, a SEO, pay-per-click and ecommerce consulting firm in Dallas. Google Product Search is a price comparison service. Users can search for retail products and the search results then list vendors selling those items. The search results include photos, prices and links to the vendors' ecommerce sites. Google does not charge any fees for listings; it makes no commission on the sales of the products, and it doesn't accept payment for products to show up first. Google first launched its product comparison service in 2002 under the nam...

Editor?s Note: Bill Hartzer is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and manager of search engine optimization and social media marketing with VizionInteractive, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared in that company?s blog. This search engine optimization tip has to do with removing a page or a specific URL from the Google search engine. I?m not going to go into a great deal of explanation about why you would want to remove a page from Google. There are many reasons for doing that (which might include the fact that it?s a duplicate page or maybe even a page that has sensitive data on it that you don?t want given out to the whole entire world). But, what I am going to do is give you...

Editor's Note: Google has a profound impact on most ecommerce businesses. These businesses rely on Google for organic search traffic and, oftentimes, traffic from pay-per-click advertising. But Google is much more than a search engine or an advertising portal. It has many other tools and resources that can help, or hurt, ecommerce businesses. We've decided to address the broad range of Google's products in "Everything Google," a monthly feature on what Google is up to. We've solicited a seasoned expert to write the feature for us. He's Bill Hartzer, a SEO, pay-per-click and ecommerce journeyman with Vizion Interactive, a Dallas-based consulting firm. The article below is Hartzer's first installment of "Everything Google," and it addres...

Editor?s Note: Bill Hartzer is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and manager of search engine optimization and social media marketing with VizionInteractive, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared in that company?s blog. Inbound links are important for search engine optimization. In order to get more links to your website from other trusted websites, consider LinkedIn. This site is an online networking tool that helps you discover job candidates, industry experts and business partners. Many of your employees might already be using LinkedIn as a networking tool. But they may not have links from their profiles to your website. This article will explain how to add links in a Linked...

It seems as though there are a million blogs. In fact, last time I checked, Technorati was reporting that over 120,000 new blogs are created every single day. That's about 1.4 new blogs every second. With so many blogs out there, which pay-per-click blogs are the most helpful? To help out, I thought I would share with you my list of personal favorite PPC blogs. SEM Geek - This blog is written by Internet marketing guru Greg Meyers. A recent Semmy award winner, one of his best posts was about optimizing paid search and landing pages for TV, radio, and print advertising. bg Theory - This blog is written by Brad Geddes, a Google AdWords seminar leader as well as a Google AdWords Qualified Professional and a Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambas...

Recently I sat down with Jeremy Mayes, the author of PPCDiscussions.com. In addition to writing the PPCDiscussions.com blog, Mayes has used paid search to sell millions of dollars of products and has generated millions of leads for various industries. I asked him about 2nd tier pay-per-click opportunities and tips that he uses to run a successful paid search campaign. PeC: Many online retailers are focused on the big three PPC search engines, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter. Why would an online retailer want to take a look at other PPC programs? Mayes: Incremental cost effective conversions. If you feel that you have essentially saturated the primary PPC engines, then the 2nd tier PPC search engines can bring ...

Last time I checked, Spyfu.com is reporting that someone is bidding $51.66 per click for phrase ?conference calling companies.? Are you bidding on words like this, which is one of the most expensive keyword phrases? Let?s take a look at the most expensive pay-per-click keywords and what you can do to reduce your overall PPC costs. If you are in a niche that includes ?conference calling,? lawyers, insurance, loans, or mortgages, there is a good chance that the keyword prices (what companies are willing to pay per click, what they?re bidding per click and what they?re paying per click) gets pretty expensive. At last check, the ?cheapest? of the top 100 most expensive phrases is $43.75 per click. And at those costs, it pays to make sure t...