The ABC`s of Ecommerce and Dropshipping Success
Contents
1. Search engine optimization can be divided into two big categories On Page SEO and Off Page SEO On page SEO focuses on optimizing the internal ranking factors of a website or webpage which affects its position in the search engine results while the off page SEO focuses on optimizing the external factors Optimization can be done for a specific search engine e g Yahoo or can be done for all search engines like using a universal method In this ebook we will focus more on how to optimize an online store for the majority of modern search engines On Page Search Engine Optimization On Page SEO consists of optimizing the internal pages of your online store in order for them to be more search engine friendly and to receive better placement in search engine results page On Page SEO needs to be done to increase the relevance of the webpage in the eyes of a search engine This can be done by optimizing the internal ranking factors of a webpage If you use an online marketplace to sell your products then your possibilities for doing on page optimization may be somehow limited but this does not mean that you can not optimize your online store from that marketplace On the other hand if you have your own online store you may implement all of the methods and advices presented below Some of the shopping cart software are SEO friendly by default while some aren t so you need to keep this in mind when choosing the shopping cart software for your onli2. Deadlines like offer available only for x hours and xx minutes or only x products left in stock are very effective Try to use this tactic only on some of your products because adding deadlines on many products will make the buyers suspicious Statements like get this product by next Friday or get this product in 3 days are also good so if you can ship your products fast you may add statements like this on your product pages It is also advised to use a red color background on the deadline phrases Add a live chat Live chats significantly increase the sales and the conversion rate Many customers before buying have many concerns and questions about the product so a live chat is a very effective way of eliminating those concerns and increasing the sales The live chat button should be installed on every page of your online store including on the checkout pages since many customers drop the sale during the checkout process so it is very important to have the live chat installed there too Win customer s trust Trust is a major factor when dealing online especially in the ecommerce field When a new customer comes to your online store he has a lack of trust and most of the time will hesitate to buy from you This is why it is crucial to establish a high level of trust between your online store and your customers Having a professional looking online store with good design and professional logo with an about us
3. 25 photo marketing See image marketing pictures 17 18 20 31 46 press release 16 17 23 Prestashop 48 57 download amp preparation 48 49 installation 49 53 listing products 54 56 order management 57 price comparison services 10 11 pricing strategies 30 31 products listing products 5 44 46 55 56 new products 32 related products 32 selling on your own website 4 5 48 selling on an online marketplace 5 7 34 top selling products 33 Index Q Q amp A questions and answers 14 15 31 R ranking factors See on page seo off page seo rankings search engine 19 rating websites 17 reviews 17 31 35 registrar domain name 5 48 S satisfaction See customer satisfaction satisfaction level 27 29 scam 3 35 search engine optimization SEO 19 26 search engines 9 19 26 self promotion 14 SEO friendly 19 48 54 SEO search engine optimization 19 26 off page SEO 19 21 23 26 on page SEO 19 21 26 shipping 27 31 42 44 shopping cart software 4 5 10 32 48 56 social bookmarking 16 22 24 social networks 12 22 24 social signals 22 spam 15 20 25 spamming 12 suppliers 2 3 34 42 45 46 T tags See meta tags targeted traffic 9 14 23 See also traffic technical support 27 terms and conditions 30 40 testing 3 33 35 time strategy 31 title tag 19 40 traffic 8 19 traffic sources free traffic 9 18 paid traffic 8 9 trust 17 30 31 U uniqu
4. page a help page contact us page privacy policy a return and shipping policy and a terms and conditions page increases the trust of your online store It is also very important to add your business address your phone number and some emails in the contact us page Icons such as PayPal VeriSign Visa Bill Me Later trust seals etc are also very important in gaining customer s trust If you are selling on an online marketplace then your feedback score will probably be the most important factor for your online store trustworthiness Give detailed answers When answering customer questions do not use plain answers like yes or no but rather give a detailed friendly answer and always ask in the end if they want to buy that product 30 Pages 31 to 47 are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Chapter 8 Practical example Selling on your own website using the dropshipping business model Selling on an online marketplace is good but selling on your own website is even better It gives you more freedom of action and makes you more independent in the decisions you make compared to the online marketplace stores But just like with most things that have a positive side it also has some negative sides like a lot of extra work mainly for promotion some additional costs for domain and hosting etc The steps for selling on your own website are a
5. the installation process of the Prestashop shopping cart software will begin 49 Pages 50 to 57 are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Final thoughts Creating and running a successful online store and ecommerce business is not that hard or complex as it seems but it takes a lot of time First you need to do a market research to see what products to sell at what prices to study your competitors their weaknesses and strengths etc Then you need to create an online store either on an online marketplace or on your own website then you need to add products to it optimize it for the search engines build backlinks get traffic to it manage the orders and keep all of your customers happy The core information needed to do this and to succeed in the ecommerce business is presented in chapter 2 3 4 5 and 6 Chapter was just a small introduction to ecommerce and dropshipping and chapters 7 and 8 were some basic examples of how to create and run an ecommerce business using the dropshipping business model on an online marketplace and on your own website I hope you enjoyed reading this ebook and gained some useful information about how to start and run a successful online store and ecommerce business 58 Page 59 is not shown in this free preview To see it please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Glossary Algorithm search engines A step by step prob
6. Robert H Froyk The ABC s of Ecom Merce and Dropshipping Success Practical guide how to start and run a successful online store and ecommerce business www abc of ecommerce com The ABC s of Ecommerce and Dropshipping Success Practical guide how to start and run a successful online store and ecommerce business Robert H Froyk www abc of ecommerce com Pages ii and iii are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Contents List OF tables isrener aE EA REEE ENS Ee EEEE EE EEES TERESE teses v VARA OCG EEE E EE E E E E E E ASS vi Chapter 1 Ecommerce and dropshipping basics ccccccsceesseceseceseceeeeeeseecaeceseceeeeeeseecaeceeeeeeeenseees 1 Chapter 2 Creating your online StOregascsuttes oyeie devas devs sadapeeauncdeaceund Saas daudaeeaangeeds Cua ued Gmina 4 Selling products on your OWN WeDSIte eee eeeesesseeeeeeeeeeeseceseeseeeaeesaeeseeceeeesaeeeesaeeeaeens 4 Selling products through online marketplaces cccceecccescesseceeceeseeeeeeeceseeeseceseenteenseenes 5 Chapter 3 Getting traffic to your online StOre eee eeeccceceseceecceescecesecesceceseceeeeeeseecsaeceseeeeeeenseeesaeenes 8 Paid CAE EG gh aea paca satap acd aa scp cad ed A cag dared A a AE aade aces EE aAA EEEE sedate 8 Free eb Came ee eee Oe En SE oe eA eer ara ane ener ee 9 Chapter 4 Search engine optimization for your online Store ceeeecceeseeeteceteceee
7. ain It is important to get backlinks from blogs and posts with related content Getting backlinks from blogs with unrelated content may harm the rankings of your online store for the keywords you try to optimize To find blogs with the Top commentator plugin and with related content you may do a google search with your keyword in the query and the phrase Top commentators For example the Computer Top commentators search query will find blog posts that contain the word Computer and have the Top commentators plugin installed Another good way to find blogs with related content where you can comment is using special blog search services like http www inlineseo com dofollowdiver or http www google com cse home cx 010363265520675485990 xjmxcyokkls With the help of these services you can find do follow blogs with your keywords in their posts It is also very important not to spam on blogs and to post only useful on topic comments since if you do otherwise many of the blog administrators will delete your comments and you will have no backlinks 23 Pages 24 to 26 are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Chapter 5 Customer service and satisfaction level Customer service is the process of providing services to customers before during and after a purchase Its main goal is to enhance the customer satisfaction level and to make sure that the product
8. e 27 29 CTR Clickthrough rate 22 D deadlines 30 deep link 22 design 31 directories See web directories directory submitting software 24 discount 16 27 dofollow 23 25 domain name 5 48 E eCrater 35 46 listing products 45 46 order management 47 registration 36 38 shipping management 43 44 store configuration 39 41 example ecommerce business 34 48 expectations customer 27 31 external links 20 22 F FAQ frequently asked questions 31 feed product 10 35 feedback 30 35 FFA free for all 25 flash 20 forum signatures 18 24 free traffic sources 9 18 G Google attributes 46 H help pages 20 30 hosting 5 48 I image hosting 18 image marketing 17 18 images 17 18 20 31 46 installation guide 54 instant traffic 16 See also traffic sources Internet groups 18 28 K keyword density 20 21 25 keyword tag 19 L link farms 20 25 live chat 28 30 66 load time webpage 20 long term traffic 9 15 17 See also SEO traffic sources M mailing lists 18 market research 28 34 marketing techniques 30 31 meta tags 19 40 N needs customer 28 nofollow 25 See also dofollow backlink sources O off page SEO 19 21 23 26 online marketplaces 5 7 32 35 on page SEO 19 21 26 optimization See SEO out of stock 33 outbound links See external links P payments 32 39 41 penalization 14 19 20 25 photo sharing 18
9. e and ecommerce business We will focus more on the practical side and less on the theory Along with the old techniques we will show you some of the newest techniques and how to s from the ecommerce and marketing field We will cover all the processes involved in ecommerce starting from creating an online store getting traffic to it optimizing it for the search engines and finishing with customer service and tips for increasing sales and conversion rate Many links to external resources will be given in every of the eight chapters that this ebook has for further reading and learning This ebook is good for people who have a traditional retail store and want to start selling online it is good for people who do not have anything and want to sell online and it is good for established ecommerce businesses and online stores who may learn something new and expand their knowledge Chapter 1 provides a short overview of the ecommerce and dropshipping concept There we will show you the basic concept of ecommerce and dropshipping Links to external resources will be given in this chapter for further reading and learning so that you could better understand what ecommerce and what dropshipping is Chapter 2 presents all the information needed for creating an online store In that chapter we will talk about how to create an online store and will present you a list with some of the most popular online marketplaces and shopping cart software Chapter 3 i
10. e content 19 20 67 V video marketing 9 10 videos 9 10 22 31 vouchers 16 W warehouse 1 2 watermark 18 watermark software 18 web directories 24 web host See hosting web traffic See traffic writers 15 Index 68
11. ebhosting info webhosts tophosts global Installing the shopping cart software For this example we will use the PrestaShop shopping cart software We choose it because it is free easy to use and SEO friendly First thing that we need to do is to download the software from prestashop com 48 Chapter 8 Selling on your own website using the dropshipping business model PrestaShop Build an online store with PrestaShop Free Open source E commerce Software Mozilla Firefox File Edit Yiew History Bookmarks Tools Help M PrestaShop Build an online store wi gt 7 gt Sign PRESTA E o No gt Create an Account Param Contact 9am 6pm EST DOWNLOAD 2 11 888 947 6543 Dawniosa ownload PrestaShop Now Features Always FREE and easy to install and customize Mobile Aj Zo oost your online sales with PrestaShop e commerce software Showcase Testimonials Success Stories Switch to PrestaShop Alroaadw El AnA alala Dawmnlonadecl al http www prestashop comfen download Then we need to unzip the zip folder and copy all of its contains on our web host either via direct upload or via FTP transfer After this we need to create a MySQL database on our web host and to access the install folder from our website If we have copied the prestashop files in the root folder of our website then the path should look like this youronlinestore com install After opening this page
12. ediff com Popular in India Formspring http www formspring me Social Q amp A website Ask MetaFilter http ask metafilter com Google Baraza Q amp A http www google com baraza en Amazon Askville http askville amazon com Answerbag http www answerbag com ChaCha http www chacha com Stack Exchange Network http stackexchange com Has many sub sites classified by topic Blurtit http www blurtit com Allexperts http www allexperts com AOL Answers http aolanswers com Ask Me Help Desk http www askmehelpdesk com WebAnswers http www webanswers com Fluther http www fluther com Askpedia http www askpedia com 14 Pages 15 to 18 are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Chapter 4 Search engine optimization for your online store Search engine optimization SEO is the process of improving the rankings of a website or webpage in the organic or natural search results of a search engine Usually the higher the rankings of a website or webpage are in the search engine results page the more visitors it receives from the search engine s users This is why SEO is so important if you want to get high amounts of traffic for specific keywords or search terms With the help of SEO your online store or product pages can get higher rankings in the search engine results page thus getting more visitors from the search engine s users
13. eeeseeeeseecsseenseenees 19 DTTP SEO esa es E a On E RG a A EE ee 19 OTT PASSO otis cactassitied test atch wag autora eeauesae ie adi tans ce caeg ae eenas cds ane Monona nadtacere tenes 21 Backlink Sources anoeia EA E TA E T atm ana SOS 23 Chapter 5 Customer service and satisfaction level ccccscccessseceesceceesceceeseeceececssececsseeeeseeeesseeees 2T Chapter 6 Tips and advices to increase the conversion rate of your online store and to get more a E EE E E EE 30 Chapter 7 Practical example Selling on an online marketplace using the dropshipping business modely eirin eia e E aTa a eE a a Ea Eaa eaa aE aa aata iea 34 Chapter 8 Practical example Selling on your own website using the dropshipping business modela aa A E a eR A A E O E Tee SNe er 48 Final CHOU SINGS sos vissnweeic sccuseis cca ecieh Sasachiouaaba Quick is iaueieas latuebancusadicahsdusbuudnusiecabwovsbcuubessuasbacubicinaihsszbweuebscanevbs 58 GI OS SPY ORE IEE EEE E E E EEE ESE AION EARS 60 ILIAN Aa AEETI AEE EEE EEEN OE ET ESTES T E EEN 66 List of Tables Table 1 Popular shopping cart SOP Wate soi sa ccsticntinvsskavaecadakdslatnatia si Giaadincactaitnconted diasalss eur dnccanamrvadeades 4 Table 2 Popular online marketplaces iciss sssctisksbacsiaseds cack sveaishsvensaubeds cana seeaayes dacdhabdusnpoadedacte haecaesdbaincts 6 Table 3 Online advertising Networks c 25 se00bineszaadaeis cep bandon dhoaegeiteaalaaisea hale ine amecitbaxvcateaeceiee 8 Table 4 P
14. erce perspective this usually refers to the percentage of visitors to an online store who have bought a product from it Coupon A promotional tool in the form of a ticket or document that can be redeemed for a discount or rebate when purchasing products or services CPA Cost Per Action An online advertising pricing model where the advertiser pays for a specific action a purchase a click a form submission etc CPM Cost Per Mile An online advertising pricing model where the advertiser pays for each 1000 views of his ad On some occasions it is used as a measurement indicator 60 Pages 61 to 65 are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Index A advertisement 8 14 advertising networks online 8 9 alt attribute 20 anchor text 20 21 25 article marketing 15 23 articles 15 23 24 awareness See buyer awareness B back order 33 backlinks 21 22 23 25 backlink checking tool 25 backlink sources 23 25 bargain websites 16 blog commenting 23 buyer awareness 16 17 C categories 20 31 41 42 54 chat See live chat checkout 30 32 classified ads 12 13 clickthrough rate CTR 22 comment See blog commenting competitors 16 25 complains 27 28 contact information 28 38 40 contact us pages 28 30 36 40 conversion 16 30 conversion rate 30 33 coupons 16 27 customer satisfaction 27 28 customer servic
15. for Russian and CIS market http direct yandex com Casale Media http www casalemedia com Zanox for German Italian and European http www zanox com en market ValueClick Media http Awww valueclickmedia com Burst Media http www burstmedia com Chapter 3 Getting traffic to your online store CPX Interactive http www cpxinteractive com Mail Ru Advertising for Russian and CIS http corp mail ru adv market Tribal Fusion http www tribalfusion com Text Link Ads http www text link ads com AdChina for Chinese market http www adchina com Ad Magnet for Indian market http www admagnet com Blogads http web blogads com ExoClick http www exoclick com Hi media for French and European market http www hi media com Kontera http www kontera com Hi Midia for Brazilian market http www hi midia com Adknowledge http www adknowledge com Advertising com http www advertising com Ikoo for Arabian market http www ikoo com D A Consortium for Japanese market http www dac co jp Clickbooth http www clickbooth com Free traffic Free traffic is a good source of potential buyers to your store If done correctly this can be a stable long term traffic source This is why it is imperative that online store owners focus more on the f
16. from few domains may look suspicious to the search engines and they could lower your rankings Having backlinks from many different domains shows the search engine that your online store and its 21 Page 22 is not shown in this free preview To see it please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Chapter 4 Search engine optimization for your online store then your online store will rank high in United Kingdom or if you have many backlinks from fr websites then your online store will rank high in France and so on This also applies to the topic of the websites from where you get backlinks For example if you have many backlinks from websites about coins then your online store will rank high for coins related keywords These were some of the most important off page ranking factors Optimizing all of these factors confers your online store a higher authority which in return leads to higher rankings in the search engines and more targeted traffic from them Backlink sources As you have seen in the list above many of the off page ranking factors focus on backlinks Backlinks pointing to your online store may be viewed as votes So the more votes your website or webpage has the higher it will rank in the search engines It is also important from where those links votes come from since some backlinks have more weight or value than other do Some backlinks may even be bad for your online store rankings like receiving a negative
17. g videos You just create a video and upload it to a popular video hosting website You get traffic from these videos by putting the URL of your online store in the beginning and the end or in the right or left corner of the video You may also put a link to a specific product from your store in the description of the video Chapter 3 Getting traffic to your online store Video marketing is a very good source of targeted traffic An old saying states that a picture is worth a thousand words but in the case of video it s worth a lot more For instance if you create a video of your product and you get 10 000 views which is not that hard if you use right title and tags you get 10 000 potential buyers for that product so this is a method worth trying To get the maximum out of this method it would be good to create videos with all the products you sell However if you have thousands of products then creating videos of the most popular ones will be enough to get some good traffic to your store You may film the product without saying anything or you may film it while commenting in the background of the video If your ecommerce business is based on dropshipping and you do not have the products physically then you can create a short video using the photos of the products A good service that you can use for this is onetruemedia com You just upload your photos on that website add a soundtrack from the sample list and the video is ready It
18. he shopping cart software we discussed in the second chapter allow to generate this feed automatically for some price comparison websites There are paid and free price comparison services Some marketplaces submit your product data feed automatically to the most popular free price comparison websites Almost all price comparison services require registration which is usually free Below is a list with some of the most widely used price comparison websites Table 4 Popular price comparison websites Name URL Data Feed information and Cost specification Google http www google com shoppi http support google com merchants Free Product ng bin answer py hl en amp answer 18849 4 other Bing http www bing com shopping http advertising microsoft com smal Free Shopping 1 business search advertising bing shopping TheFind http www thefind com http merchantblog thefind com 2011 Free 01 merchant newsletter demystifying product 10 Pages 11 to 13 are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Chapter 3 Getting traffic to your online store Slando http www slando ru Very popular in Russia and CIS Iz ruk v ruki http irr ru Popular in Russia Classifieds Giant http classifiedsgiant com Popular in Russia Estonia Ukraine Kazakhstan Belarus and Uzbekistan 6 Question and Answers website
19. igh satisfaction level among buyers the following things needs to be done Set the right level of expectations This is probably one of the most important things that needs to be done if you want to get a high level of customer satisfaction Setting higher expectations will get you more unsatisfied buyers while setting lower expectations will get you fewer sales so it is very important to set the right level of expectations for your customers This can be accomplished by providing an accurate description of your products and by including a product FAQ frequently asked questions section in the product page Provide good technical customer support It is essential to make sure that your customers are fully satisfied and are using the products services according to their uses Try to include good user manuals guides and or instructions with assistance in installation training trouble shooting maintenance upgrading and disposal of the products you sell Providing a link to the manufacturer s online user manual is also good if it is available Surprise your customer Along with the products that your customers bought try to include some cheap accessories or products for free It is also good to include a thank you note and a discount coupon inside the package This way the customers will not be just satisfied but they will be happy This will increase the probability that they will buy again from your online store and that they w
20. ill recommend you to their friends associates etc Deal with all customer complaints Complains are a major factor in customer satisfaction There will be times when the products received by the customers may be defective or may have been 27 Pages 28 to 29 are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Chapter 6 Tips and advices to increase the conversion rate of your online store and to get more sales While getting many visitors to your online store is important the rate at which those visits convert into sales is by far more important An increase in the conversion rate from 1 to 2 is equal to a 100 increase in sales so this is definitely a point worth focusing and improving Increasing the conversion rate is a much more viable and effective solution for getting more sales than trying to bring more traffic In this chapter we will show you a number of tips and advices on how to increase the conversion rate and the sales of your online store Therefore for increasing your conversion rate and sales feel free to use any of the following advices Create a sense of urgency for your customers This is a good marketing technique to get more sales and increase your conversion rate The theory behind this is that people tend to buy faster and with less thinking when they are rushed by something So placing a deadline on your product page may increase the sales of that product
21. lem solving procedure used by the search engines to determine what web pages to suggest for a given search query Alt attribute An HTML attribute used for specifying an alternative text of an image If the browser can t display images then the alt text will be displayed instead The alt attribute also helps search engines and blind people to understand about what an image is Anchor text The visible and clickable text of a link It is very important for SEO ASP Active Server Pages Server side scripting environment developed by Microsoft Authority website A well trusted website that has high rankings in the search engines and which is cited by many experts from its topical community B2B Business to Business The exchange of services information and or products between two or more businesses B2C Business to Consumer The exchange of services information and or products between a business and a consumer Backlink Inbound link An incoming link to a website or web page Banner ad A type of online advertisement in the form of a graphic image Blog A periodically updated discussion or information website consisting of a series of entries posts which are usually displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first C2C Consumer to Consumer The exchange of services information and or products between two or more consumers Conversion rate From an ecomm
22. lmost the same as to sell on an online marketplace the only difference being in the third step which is a little bit more complex 1 Market research For this example we will use the market research from the previous example from chapter 7 2 Finding a supplier We will use the same supplier as in the previous example from chapter 7 3 Creating the online store This step has the most differences compared to the previous example For creating an online store on our own website we need to register a domain name for it then we need to choose a hosting and to install the shopping cart software that we want to use Registering the domain name This is pretty easy We just go to an online domain registrar and register our domain When choosing your domain name make sure it is simple and easy to remember because customers usually do not remember well long domain names Some good domain name registrars were presented in the second chapter see page 5 Hosting the online store Hosting is very important If we will have many customers it is wise to use a dedicated hosting service but for start a cheap regular hosting or even a free hosting will do When choosing the hosting make sure it meets the requirements of the shopping cart software you want to use A good list with some of the best hosting services can be found at http www webhostingsearch com http b2evolution net web hosting top quality best webhosting php http www w
23. n the free traffic because it is free usually its effects last longer than the paid traffic and it is very abundant if you know where and how to get it Paid traffic is for fast results on short term while free traffic is for slow results but on long term Paid traffic Paid traffic may be used when the online store is new and does not have sales and or reputation or when there are some ongoing promotions or discounts available but in the long term it is better to focus on the free traffic Paid traffic can be classified in CPM advertising Cost per Mille or Thousand Views PPC advertising Pay per click also called Cost per Click CPA advertising Cost per Acquisition or Action or in fixed cost for some banner advertising Depending on what type of advertising model you choose your ad may show on other websites on search engine results pages on emails videos various online groups etc Some good online advertising networks are listed below in Table 3 Table 3 Online advertising networks Name URL Google AdWords http www google com adwords Chitika http chitika com Bidvertiser http www bidvertiser com AdBrite http www adbrite com Facebook Advertising http www facebook com advertising Yahoo Advertising http searchmarketing yahoo com Microsoft Advertising http advertising microsoft com Baidu Phoenix Next for Chinese market http e baidu com pro Yandex Direct
24. ne store In the list below we will try to examine some of the most important internal ranking factors Title tag Title tag displays the title of a webpage so it is highly recommended to include in it the keywords for which you want to optimize the webpage The title should be 20 50 characters long Try not to write very long titles since they dilute the keywords and weaken their SEO impact It is not advisable to use special characters in the title tag It is also important to write unique titles Description and keywords meta tags They are not very important but it still isn t bad to add some of your keywords in the description and in the keyword meta tags It is also advisable the description and the keywords to be unique Webpage URL It is wise to add some of your keywords in the URL of the page you want to optimize It would also be beneficial to have not too long URLs and to place the words and keywords between dashes e g yourwebsite com products tv 24 inch plasma tv with remote control html 19 Page 20 is not shown in this free preview To see it please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Chapter 4 Search engine optimization for your online store Ads to content ratio Some webmasters claim that too many ads on a low content page may be harmful for your search engines results ranking In my opinion there should be no ads on an online store since they can send away your potential buyers to some
25. nese speaking person to sell on this marketplace Tmall http www tmall com Owned by Taobao If you know Chinese you may sell on this marketplace or you may hire a Chinese speaking person to sell there Yahoo Auctions http auctions yahoo co jp Very popular in Japan You may hire a Japan Japanese speaking person to sell there Bidders http www bidders co jp Popular in Japan Molotok http www molotok ru Very popular in Russia 24au ru http www 24au ru Popular in Russia Page 7 is not shown in this free preview To see it please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Chapter 3 Getting traffic to your online store Now that we have the products to sell and a place where to sell them it s time to bring some potential buyers to our store or in other words traffic Web traffic is the total amount of visitors a website or online store receives in a period of time For an ecommerce business traffic is vital Without it you have no sales this is why every ecommerce business should focus on receiving more traffic More traffic means more potential buyers and thus more sales Traffic is like gasoline for cars without it your ecommerce business will not work In terms of money spent there are two types of traffic paid traffic and free traffic Paid traffic is a good source of potential buyers if it is done correctly but I think that online stores should focus more o
26. opular price comparison WebSiItes cccecceceseceseceeeceescecaeceseeeeseeeseecsueceseeeeeeenseecaecneenaaes 10 Fable 5 Online classified ads We DSites a asad Secscosd agua ctnctuteiuctanel ae cau aaa oie uae Sas Sane a a 12 Table 6 Question and Answers WeDSIteS ccccccccccsseceessecessseceeseecesseecseeeecesseecsseeceseeecsseeecsseeeesseeeses 14 Table 7 Rating and review Websites cu wt cvesscatia cuisecboa eae oe asuaes ocala eae sel ae eich ele 17 Table 8 Photo sharing and image hosting Websites cccccccsccesceesceesceesseceeeseeeeseneeeseecaeceeeeeeeenaees 18 Preface Internet is developing with high paces As of 2011 there were 2 26 billion Internet users worldwide or 32 7 of total world population Apart from communication information socializing entertainment education etc many of these users use the Internet for shopping More and more Internet users choose to buy online rather than from the regular retail stores In 2011 the global ecommerce market was estimated to be worth around 680 billion with a 19 increase from the previous year And in the years to come these numbers will only grow With such a high potential many entrepreneurs and businesses started exploring and getting into the ecommerce business and they should Ecommerce is an opportunity not to be overlooked In this ebook we will take a closer look into the ecommerce world and will show you how to create and run a successful online stor
27. or service has met the customer s expectations It is one of the major factors in having a successful long term ecommerce business You may bring as many new customers as you want but without the proper customer service those customers will remain unsatisfied and will not buy from you any more They may even spread negative information about your online store leaving you with fewer sales and fewer customers and all the hard work you have put in promoting your online store and in getting more customers will fade away On the other hand if you provide good customer service and meet your customer expectations then they will come back to buy again from your online store and will share their positive experience with others which in return will get you even more customers and sales A company s most vital assets are its customers so without them the company can not exist When you satisfy your customers they help you grow not only by continuing to do business with you but also by recommending you to their friends and associates It is also important to make your customers not just satisfied but to make them happy By doing so you will get even more sales and more customers and your ecommerce business will flourish Since the main goal of customer service is to have a high level of customer satisfaction we will analyze what it takes to achieve this along with the provision of good customer service So in order to have a good customer service and a h
28. other websites and you may end up with fewer sales These were some of the most important on page search engine ranking factors Some of the webmasters argue that many of the on page ranking factors are not relevant any more for getting high rankings in the search engines and website owners should focus more on the off page SEO While this may be true to some extent doing on page SEO does not hurt your rankings so it is still advisable to do it since your online store will only benefit from it As a common saying in the webmasters world On page SEO is to show the search engine that your page is relevant for some keywords while the off page SEO is to show that the website webpage is popular As an advice we recommend not to optimize the web pages for multiple keywords but rather to optimize them for fewer keywords preferably for those that have less competition and to use only unique content on pages Now that we have analyzed the on page ranking factors and know how to optimize our online store internally it is time to move to the next step and see how to optimize our online store using off page SEO which compared to the on page SEO has a much more weight and value for the search engine rankings Off Page Search Engine Optimization Off page SEO is the combination of techniques and methods used outside of your online store in order to help it and its web pages to get higher rankings in the search engines Off page SEO includes optimi
29. p www ebay com Generates a lot of sales and profit but some sellers complain about their high fees Popular worldwide Amazon http www amazon com Just like eBay generates high sales and profit but sellers complain about high fees eCrater http www ecrater com 100 free marketplace You do not have to pay any fees on this marketplace Design is nice and clean eBid http ebid net Professional marketplace but some sellers complain about the low volume of sales uBid http www ubid com Same as eBid Webstore com http www webstore com No buying or selling fees No signup fees Atomic Mall http www atomicmall com Boocoo Auctions http www boocoo com Blujay http www blujay com 100 free online marketplace but has very low traffic so you will have to do a lot of promotion OnlineAuction http www onlineauction com SpecialistAuctions http specialistauctions com WeBidz http www webidz com ePier http www epier com Plunderhere http www plunderhere com CQout http www cqout com Usiff http usiff com Wensy http wensy com Taobao http www taobao com It is available only in Chinese language If you know Chinese you may sell on this marketplace As of March 2012 it is ranked the 14 most popular website on the internet by alexa com For comparison eBay is ranked 21st most popular in the world by the same website You may hire a Chi
30. ree traffic rather than on the paid one Paid traffic is also good it brings fast results but as fast as it comes as fast it goes On the other hand free traffic brings slow results in the beginning but in the long term it brings much more traffic and profit than the paid one So let us review some of the best free traffic sources for an online store 1 Search Engines Clearly search engines are the best source of free traffic for any website including online stores However in order to receive high amounts of stable and targeted traffic from the search engines there is some work that needs to be done and to be more precise SEO or Search Engine Optimization More about SEO we will talk in the next chapter If you have a standalone online store on your own website then it would be beneficial if you would create a sitemap of your online store and submit it to all major search engines like Google Bing Yahoo for English speaking and most international market Baidu for Chinese market Yandex Mail Ru Rambler for Russian and former USSR market Naver Daum for South Korean market etc You may submit the URL of your homepage and sitemap to each search engine manually or you may use a free search engine submitter e g SubmitExpress that will submit your online store URL automatically to all search engines 2 Video Marketing Video marketing refers to the process of promoting your products or services usin
31. s Q amp A websites can be a good long term traffic source You get traffic by answering questions related to the products you sell and specify your online store as the source This is a very effective method of getting targeted traffic and potential buyers to your online store Since your answers will be visible on the Internet for years these websites are considered long term traffic source It is good to note that self promotion is penalized very hard on these websites so try to answer only to questions related to the products you sell and try to format the answer in a helpful way rather than as an advertisement of your store or products Do not spam on this websites and use them accordingly to their terms of service Some good Q amp A websites are listed in the table below Table 6 Question and Answers websites Name URL Note Yahoo Answers http answers yahoo com One of the most popular Q amp A website which also brings a lot of traffic Popular worldwide Quora http www quora com Has a very intelligent community It is intermediate between an expert Q amp A website and a general public Q amp A website LinkedIn Answers http www linkedin com answers Ask Reddit http www reddit com 1r AskReddit SocialAnswers http www socialanswers com Answers com http www answers com Rediff Q amp A http qna r
32. s all about traffic There we will talk about different ways of getting traffic to your online store both free and paid methods and will review some of the best sources of free traffic Chapter 4 is dedicated to search engine optimization In that chapter we will analyze the different factors that influence the search engine rankings of your online store We will analyze both the internal factors on page SEO and external factors off page SEO and will show you some good backlink sources for your online store Chapter 5 is about customer service and shows some ways in which you should treat your customers and what you need to do in order to have satisfied customers and a good reputation of your online store vi Preface Chapter 6 explores the methods and techniques used to increase sales There you will read some tips and advices on how to increase the conversion rate and sales of your online store And finally chapter 7 and 8 is dedicated to two practical examples of creating an online store There you will see in practice how to create and run an online store on an online marketplace and on your own website using the dropshipping business model vii Pages 1 to 5 are not shown in this free preview To see them please buy the full ebook from www abc of ecommerce com Table 2 Popular online marketplaces General marketplaces Chapter 2 Creating your online store Name URL Notes eBay htt
33. vote So as you can see the source of your backlinks is very important for your online store rankings in the search engine this is why it is recommended to get backlinks only from the best sources Some good sources of backlinks are presented in the list below Article Websites Article websites or sometimes called article directories are one of the best source of high quality backlinks To obtain the best results the keywords for which you try to optimize must be used in the title of the article and as the anchor text in the backlinks to your online store The keyword density of the article should not be more than 2 3 It is important to write the articles in a helpful informative way so that the readers would not see it as an advertisement of your online store but rather to see it as a help It is also good to use images in articles Submitting the same article to different article websites is not advisable Some good article websites where you can submit your articles were presented in the previous chapter see page 15 Press Releases Press releases just like articles are a very good source of high quality backlinks All of the writing and optimization advices for articles can and should be applied for press releases A good list of websites to submit your press releases is shown in the previous chapter see page 17 Blog commenting Blog commenting is a useful and very popular method of getting many backlinks from a single dom
34. will be like a small 45 seconds presentation video After this you upload the video to some video hosting websites and enjoy the traffic Probably the best video hosting website is Youtube so you should focus more on it To get more views of your videos don t forget to put your keywords and product name in the title description and in the tags of the videos The thumbnail of the video has a big influence on the number of views so try to choose the best thumbnail This way you will get more views on Youtube You may also submit your videos to other websites like Metacafe Vimeo Dailymotion etc but don t expect to receive much traffic from them In my opinion for video marketing Youtube is the best A good list of video hosting websites where you can submit your videos is available at http en wikipedia org wiki Comparison_ of video hosting services 3 Price Comparison Websites These websites are gold mines for online stores They are used by millions of people and bring huge traffic to the online stores listed in them so it is imperative that you do you re best to list your store into these price comparison services Price comparison websites can bring even more traffic than the search engines or video marketing In order to get your store listed you must create a feed of the products you sell usually in the xml or txt format and submit that feed to the price comparison websites where you want your products to appear Some of t
35. zation of factors that are not located on your online store These factors include Number of authority backlinks Authority backlinks are links from websites and web pages with relevant content and high rankings in the search engines If you want to get high rankings in the search engines then having many authority backlinks is a must These links sometimes are also called quality backlinks Anchor text of the backlink This is a very important ranking factor for the particular keyword you try to rank Try to use different keywords as your anchor text since having the same keyword on many backlink anchor text may be penalized by the search engines so it is good to diversify a little bit As an anchor text try to use the keywords that you have used when doing on page optimization This will give the best results Keyword density and relevance Backlinks from relevant pages with an average 2 4 keyword density are the best if you want to have high rankings in the search engines It is also good for the keyword to be in the title of the page linking to you On the other hand if the keyword density of the webpage you get a backlink is very high then the search engines may penalize that webpage and reduce its authority and trustiness so you will end up having a low quality backlink from a low quality page which is not desirably Backlink diversity It is best to have links from lots of different domains since having links only
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