Tip Of the Day - SEO Q&A

Here are some SEO basics in form of a Q&A text.

Q: What is SEO?
A: Search Engine Optimization - the art of making a website/shop attractive for search engines.

Q: Why would I care if a search engine likes my shop/website?
A: Because they are the bridge between your shop and the shoppers. If you build a good relationship with the search engines they will send people who want to buy what you are selling right into your shop.

Q: What search engines do I need to impress?
A: Google before every other. Google is the ruler of the cyber universe - it can make a star out of you, or ignore you and make a job of selling t-shirts much harder for you than it needs to be. Yahoo, MSN and other smaller search engines are important, too, but they are used by less people, so they have a smaller potential in bringing shoppers into your store.

Q: How do I get on Google's good side?
A: By having a lot of fresh, keyword rich content on your site.

Q: How do I keep my website fresh?
A: By frequently updating it. This can be done in many ways. You could add new designs, sections and new products. You could go into old sections and change descriptions. You could change the layout of the site, shuffle sections and products... In other words keep tweaking the site/shop, even if the changes are small. That will keep Google aware that the site is active and it will give it more credit and better position in the search results.

Q: What is a keyword?
A: Keyword is a word or a group of words that shoppers use to search the web. "Monkey" is a keyword, "Love Monkey" is also a keyword, "Love Monkey t-shirt" you guessed it - a keyword.

Q: What do I do to make my shop keyword rich?
A: You use every given opportunity to add text to your shop. Write all titles, section teasers, section descriptions and product descriptions. Use the footer of the site to add interesting/funny/educational texts relevant to your designs. Use the headers of sections to give a good description of what is available in the section. While you are at it, fill those texts with keywords that shoppers would use when looking for the stuff you sell or that would attract people who are your target shoppers. Example: "Wide selection of unique and funny monkey t-shirt and gift items for a monkey lover." See how "monkey t-shirt" and "funny monkey t-shirt" and "monkey lover" all fit into one small section. Plus we have words gift and unique thrown in too... so if someone was looking for "unique gift for a monkey lover" your description would allow for your page to be listed in the search results.

Q: How do I know what the shoppers are thinking and what keywords they use?
A: Easy. Use Keyword Selector Tool. Type in a general keyword and it will give you more specific keywords to use in your descriptions. Example: search for "monkey" or "monkey shirt". Go through the results and find the keywords that will be most beneficial for your shop. The more keywords with a specific product name in it - the better. The more people search for the keyword - the better. Don't give up if the page doesn't appear. Just go back and reload. It's worth all the reloading.

Q: What else can I do to pimp up my shop SEO-wise?
A: Make the keywords in shop description, section descriptions and the footer bold. To make a text bold use html. If you don't know how to do that you can learn here: HTML Text Formatting. You should not use html in section teasers, product descriptions or titles. If you add your own images to the shop (banner, logo...) add alt and title tags to the html code for the image. Titles are very important for SEO, as they go into the title bar on top of the browser and they appear as links (both carry importance for SEO), so make sure to pick really good titles - both section and product titles matter.

Q: Anything I can do for SEO away from the site?
A: Yes! Build links from various parts of the net pointing to your shop. Use every given opportunity to do that. Post links to your shop in blogs, Squidoo, on MySpace. Don't spam, but be sure to use an opportunity when you spot one.

Q: Anything I shouldn't do?
A: You shouldn't try to fool search engines. They are smart and will bust you. You don't want that to happen, believe me! Don't use hidden text (same color of the text and the background). Don't repeat a keyword too many times on a page. Any excessive use of one single keyword is called keyword spamming and will get you in trouble.

Q: How can I know if my SEO efforts are paying off?
A: Get a StatCounter for your site, keep an eye on it, especially on the Keyword Analysis feature. Are the Search Terms that visitors are using those that you planed to be your main keywords? If not, you will need to work them into more titles and descriptions. Search terms are also great inspiration for new designs. It's reversed SEO. The shopper is already there and you know what s/he wants, so get busy, create and offer it to them.

Q: How do I find out if a search engine likes my website?
A: Use that very search engine and search for site:your shop's full web address (example: site:http://www.cafepress.com/cutestshopever). As a result you'll get a list of all the pages from your site indexed by the search engine. The more pages - the better, but they need to be in the main list. Those results that have Supplemental Result in the bottom line are not all that useful.

Q: Is there anything else I need to know about SEO.
A: One always needs to keep learning about SEO.

Tip Of the Day - Time Saving

Here is a quick and easy one.

When you are rearranging items in a section don't drag a single item all across the section clicking a bazillion times to do that. Select all the fields between the item you want to move and the position where you want to move it by clicking on the one end and than clicking on the other while holding shift. Than click up or down to move the whole selection and put the item you want to move where you want it to be.

Example:

Items stand like this:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
You want to move 2 and move it behind 8 so that the items stand like this:
1
3
4
5
6
7
8
2
9
You do NOT select 2 and than click the arrow down six times to do this. Here is what you do. You click on 3, than hold shift and click on 8. This will select everything from 3 to 8. Than, you press the up arrow once and the items will be lined as you want them to be.

It's one of those obvious things... but than I've been known to overlook the obvious. Maybe this will help you save some time. It helps me a great deal, especially since the real sections are made of close to or more than 100 items unlike the example of only 9 items.

Tip of the Day - Tagging

Interesting discovery:

If you edit the tags for an old design and save the new tags, the design will show up among the newest arrivals with the next influx of designs.

Changing tags of an existing design can help or harm a design depending on how well it sells.

1. Design that sells well and already has a good position in the marketplace will lose its rating and start it's marketplace life from scratch. I can't see one single reason to do this. It's too big of a risk and you gain nothing with it.
2. Design that never sold or sold a long time ago and that is stuck somewhere deep in the marketplace, where even you can't find it will, too, start its marketplace life from scratch. Such design will regain the advantage that new designs get and have a good position in the marketplace that new designs initially get. This will give that design a new chance to be noticed and start selling.

Considering all this I give you the Tip of the Day:

• Occasionally, go through your designs and re-tag old designs that never sold before and/or that are buried deep in the marketplace search results. At the same time, don't touch the designs that are already well placed in the marketplace.

This tip will not work wonders and bring you a million sales in an instant, but it will better your chances of making marketplace sales. I am sure it's worth the shopkeeper's time and I will be dedicating a few hours a week to re-tagging my designs from now on.

License Plate Frames

I usually don't make these. As an exception I made a couple today. They are actually fun to make.

The top image should be 1875x210 pixels and the bottom 3060x270 pixels (that will make them 300dpi when printed).

I color the background black and than use white text. Makes a nice contrast.

Since the template is so wide and short I put several spaces between the individual letters and even more between the words. Like this:


      I      L    O    V    E            <---- Top
M    O    N    K    E    Y    S      <---- Bottom

It makes them easier to read, too. I know I could stretch the letters to fit the template, but I don't like the distortion that is created that way.

There... Why don't you make a license plate frame today, too?