Search Engine Optimization

Submit your products to Google Merchant Center

Google used to offer a service called Google Base which has now morphed to Google’s service called Google Merchant Center.  You can log in with the above link or if you have a Google Webmaster account (and you should if you sell online), you can access this service through the My Account link. 

Through Google Merchant Center, you can give Google a list of all of your products directly to them.  That’s cool.  There are several ways to get your product feed to Google - from more sophisticated ways such as API and direct feeds to simple uploads of a Excel file.  So anyone at any skill level should be able to do this.  It is easy.

Google uses this product data feed several ways.  The biggest current opportunity for free traffic from Google’s Merchant Center feed is when Google presents the product listings within their organic search results. 

This is a true gift from Google.  You can cut the proverbial SEO line to get to the first page of results immediately.  I have seen this as a great source of traffic for several of my businesses.  Google puts your products front-and-center to qualified customers (qualified by their search term) for FREE.  You have got to love that!

There are many other ways Google uses these product feeds to get you more traffic.  The traditional way is to let searchers click on the word “Shopping” at the top of Google.com.  By doing this, searchers will just retrieve product results as opposed to the traditional Google search results which are a mix of site types. 

One of the newer ways is to have products appear in Google AdWords results in the “Sponsored Links” section.  This is called the Google Plus Box.  

This is a big deal because of the high traffic opportunity and plus, it kicks out some of the competition from the first page of AdWords results.

To get your products to appear in Google AdWords results, you need to login to your Google Account and go to SETTING then AdWords and enter your AdWords Customer ID. 

Here’s to your online success,
David

Submit Your Website to a Paid Directory

Here’s another Internet marketing tip for your website.  This article features ideas for submitting your website to the most popular directories.

Known as Internet’s Oldest Directory (circa 1994), Best of the Web (botw.org) can be a good platform for driving more traffic and better SEO rankings for your online store.

Their main product is Directory Submissions and current pricing is:
Annually Recurring Charge - US $149.95
One-Time Only Charge - US $299.95

Super Money Saving Tip:
Best of the Web frequently offers discounts on services if you join their email list. If you want to save some money on their services, I recommend joining their email list and waiting for a discount code, which I see multiple times a year. The discount is often 15%-25% off the directory submission service.

You might want to check out the other opportunities from Best of the Web including:

• Monthly Sponsorship Ads
• Blog Directory Submissions
• Blog Advertising
• Premium Local Listings

Other paid directories exist. Some are good and are shady. It gets shady quickly, but Best of the Web and Yahoo Directory Submit are indeed legitimate.

It is hard to say that by submitting your site to these directories, you will see immediate return-on-investment (ROI). You probably won’t. However, if your site is brand new, these sites can help jumpstart the search engines in finding your site. For older sites, it is worth doing especially if you have some marketing dollars for these types of efforts. They can be a good, long-term SEO play.

Good luck,
David Wauters
OnlineStoreCoach.com

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