Enjoy!

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1839-Search-Engine-Optimization-in-2010-What-You-Need-to-Know-Now

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1350-Conversion-15-Reasons-Why-Consumers-Will-Leave-Your-eCommerce-Site

Any other suggestions?

What do you think?

I ran across this information as I was browsing google for info on search engine optimization. Hope you find it useful:

Steps

1. Make sure that your website is ready (i.e. no broken links, has enough unique contents, etc).
2. Optimize your website for keywords that are highly related with your website content. You should use your main keyword for each page in the file name, meta tags (description and keywords section), in the heading of the page as well as in the first few sentences of the page preferably at the beginning of the first sentence. Also use that same main keyword a few times throughout your pages.
3. Create a sitemap file for your website. Sitemap file is a formatted file with an XML extension. It contains the URLs for all of your pages in your website. You can use free online or offline tools available to generate your sitemap file.
4. Upload the sitemap file to your website root directory.
5. Go to Google Webmasters Tools and log in using your Google account. Create if you don’t have one. It is free.
6. Type your website full URL in the “Add Site” field on the top of the Google Sitemap page and click OK.
7. Click the “Add Sitemap” link on the right of your website name.
8. Choose “General Web Sitemap ” on the “Choose Type” option list. Check all the checkboxes provided.
9. Type your full sitemap URL in the provided field and click “Add Web Sitemap” button.
10. Wait for about 2 or 3 days. Check Google by typing your website name in the search box with the word site: before the url example site:http://www.yourdomain.com. If it shows up in the result, it means that Google has indexed your website.

You’ll access the new functionality within the ‘product details’ section of your PDG admin:

When you click the “multiple categories” link, the follow page will appear (note that the categories appearing in this sample will be replaced with the categories actually set up within your storefront):

The primary category that the product belongs to, as well as any ‘parents’, will automatically be checked. These checkboxes will be grayed out as they cannot be unselected. All other categories within your storefront will appear in an indented list based on the product hierarchy. You may select up to 100 additional categories that you would like the product to appear in from the list simply by checking the box located next to each category. Note that if you want the product to appear in multiple levels of alternate categories, you must click EVERY level that you want the product to appear within (e.g. if you click the box next to “apparel -> mens -> shirts”, product would not be displayed in the “mens” category. Although this is exactly what happens with the primary category that the product belongs to, within the multiple category display, you must explicitly set every level that you want the product to appear in.

Hope everyone enjoys this new functionality!

Some of the main PDG Commerce Version 5 New Features & Tools include:

PCI PA-DSS Certified – PDG Commerce Version 5 has been tested and certified as PCI PA-DSS compliant. The only software of its type (e.g. storefront) to achieve this certification and be recommended for new deployments on the PCI’s list of approved softwares, this certification helps make a merchant’s own PCI DSS certification simple and straight forward.

Improved Administration Panel with New Tabbed Layout – The Version 5 administration panel has undergone a tremendous make over, greatly simplifying a merchant’s navigation through both initial set up pages and pages you’ll access on a regular basis.

Full XHTML Compliant Storefront/Catalog Coding – PDG Commerce Version 5 introduces full XHTML strict compliance within both the HTML templates distributed with PDG Commerce, as well as any portions of code that are generated by PDG Commerce.

Unlimited Product Images and Automatic Resizing – Merchants can now upload and display an unlimited number of images for each product within their PDG storefront. As the merchant browses their computer for the image, PDG Commerce automatically creates a thumbnail and large image based on the merchant’s specifications. PDG Commerce Version 5 also provides an “alt text” field for each group of photos in order to maintain XHTML strict compliance and increase visibility for the product within search engines.

Navigation Breadcrumbs – PDG Commerce Version 5 can display a “breadcrumbs” trail at the top of your catalog pages in order to remind the customer where they are currently shopping within the storefront and provide 1-click access to return to the “parent” level of the category they’re currently shopping within (e.g. Clothing -> Mens -> Shirts -> Men’s Dress Shirts ; each respective link would direct the user back to the “top” area for that specific category).

Full Purchase/Order History for Registered Customers – Customers who register with your PDG Commerce enabled site will be able to view the details for all prior purchases – INCLUDING purchases that were completed prior to your upgrade to PDG Commerce Version 5. Within the details of their prior purchases, the customer can elect to add any or all of the items purchased in prior transactions to their current basket and can even choose the option of replicating the entire order. Users can also view the current payment and shipping status of the order based on the status of the order within the new Version 5 Order Manager (more below…).

Improved Product Searches – PDG Commerce Version 5 will allow your customers to search for products within certain categories – both parent and sub-categories. Searches within parent categories will automatically search within all respective sub-categories as well. Also, Version 5 will allow merchants using QuickBooks Point of Sale to provide a “search by size/style/color” function to their site (e.g. Show me all women’s shoes in size 7.5).

Improved Product Category Display – PDG Commerce Version 5 provides a nested unordered list display of your product category hierarchy, providing a simple way to introduce DHTML/CSS/JAVA based menus displays to provide accordion, fly-out and other dynamic menu options within your storefront (e.g. click/hover on parent category to see subcategories of that parent without having to load another page).

Shipping Cost Estimator – Customers shopping at your PDG Commerce Version 5 site will be able to get a quick estimate on shipping costs without having to go through the checkout process. Simply add a form to your basket or any other page to collect the zip, state and country of the shipping address and the customer’s preferred shipping method. Upon submitting, the page will reload displaying the estimated shipping costs. Better still – the shiping information will already be prepopulated for registered users shopping within your store – providing a 1-click shipping estimate.

WYSIWYG HTML Editor for Company Information Pages and Product Long Descriptions – Easily insert HTML encoded information for any of your PDG generated “company” pages, as well as long descriptions for your products. Just like working within FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc., simply enter the text, choose your format options (size, color, styling of text), insert images and other formatting options and PDG Commerce Version 5 automatically creates the HTML code for your display.

What’s New, Best Sellers and Other Custom Item Lists – PDG Commerce Version 5 allows you to insert a dynamically generated customized display of products within any of your PDG generated pages. This feature allows you to display a current list of “newly added” products, “best sellers” within your storefront, or build your own “custom” item list (e.g. “May Specials” or “Mother’s Day Flowers”). Choose from preprogrammed lists or create your own list within the PDG administration panel.

Administration Panel “Dashboard” – Providing a quick-glance view of your store’s operation, the Version 5 dashboard displays your top selling items, daily sales totals, version information and more. Subsequent Version 5 releases will provide additional customizable ‘widgets’ to tweak the dashboard to your satisfaction.

Version 5 Video Documentation and Tutorials – Based on feedback received regarding our QuickBooks and QuickBooks Point of Sale Integration Tutorials, PDG will now be offering future product documentation in video format. Providing a direct 1st person example of set up will allow new users to easily implement and set PDG Commerce features just by viewing and replicating what was demonstrated in the video docs.

Pricing information for new users interested in purchasing PDG Commerce Version 5 can be found at http://www.pdgsoft.com/commerce_purchase.htm .

Existing PDG Commerce users interested in upgrading to PDG Commerce Version 5 can find upgrade information at http://www.pdgsoft.com/commerce_upgrade_purchase.htm .

Finally, PDG Shopping Cart users interested in upgrading to PDG Commerce Version 5 can read more about their upgrade options at http://www.pdgsoft.com/commerce_upgrade_cart_purchase.htm .

Hope everyone enjoys!

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1099-Ecommerce-Know-How-Writing-Product-Descriptions-that-Sell

Sorry for the lack of posts as of late. We’re working non-stop on our Version 5 release (now available on the PDG site!!!) and finally have our PCI PA-DSS certification for PDG Commerce Version 5 – becoming the first and only PCI PA-DSS certified shopping cart/storefront recommended for new deployments on the PCI Council’s site! YIPPEE!

More coming soon…

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1046-Using-Google-Analytics-for-Keyword-Segmentation-and-In-Depth-Analysis

Enjoy!

If you are interested in participating in the Beta release, please email support@pdgsoft.com. We will contact you within the next 1-2 business days with the information necessary install PDG Commerce Version 5.

So how you do even begin to apply the capabilities of these and other social networking sites to your eCommerce storefront. How about adding a “share on Facebook” link on your product pages? Suppose I’m browsing your site and see a product that I know my friend would just love. Wouldn’t it be great if I could click a button and post your web page in a message to my friend’s Facebook account, or better still, put a post directly on my wall for all my friends to see? How about making it easy for your customers to become part of your own network (e.g. become friends, get linked in, subscribe, etc.)? Need to let your customers know of a highly anticipated new product? Easy, just post it on your wall and every one of your friends will see it.

We’re going to focus specifically on some of the more popular social networking sites, however with a little digging, you’ll find that enabling this type of functionality for any networking site is often as simple as adding a link.

Facebook

Adding a “share on Facebook” link to your site is as simple as just that… Adding a link. Facebook provides very simple instructions for adding such links to your website at http://www.facebook.com/share_partners.php. Just copy the code directly from their page and paste directly into any of your PDG templates. For PDG users with a “skin set”, adding it to your Top or Bottom nav template automatically enables it for every single PDG generated page on your site. Even if you’re working with your own custom templates, simply adding it to the “item” template automatically enables it on all of your item details pages.

You can also add a link for users to see/view your public profile, allowing them to quickly and easily become your friend. You can either link to your own personal account, or set up a company “page”. Setting up a company page will allow users to become “fans” of your organization, and every time this happens, all of their friends will see this info in their status updates.

To link directly to your company page/personal profile, you can create a Facebook “badge” by performing the following steps:

1. Start from the Facebook home page.
2. Click on the “My Profile” link to view your current profile after you have logged in.
3. Select the “Create a Profile Badge” link that can be found on your profile (link found at the bottom of the left hand column).
4. Choose a template to help create your badge. A photo badge showcases your most recent photo uploads. The Signature Badge has your contact information and is ideal for email and forum signatures. The blog badge is a great addition to your external Web site or blog.
5. Set the preferences for your template. While they may vary slightly, you must select a layout (Horizontal or Vertical) and a format (Image or JavaScript) for each template.
6. Finish making changes to your badge and click “Save” to get directions for posting your badge. You will need to copy and paste the provided code into the PDG templates where you want the badge to appear.

See http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages for more information on setting up a company page and some ‘best practices’ as you get started.

Twitter

Twitter is a social messaging platform that allows you to post in real time what you or your company are currently doing. Enabling a Twitter link on your website allows anyone browsing your site to update their Twitter account that they’re currently browsing your website (with a link to your site! — http://www.pdgsoft.com/blog/archives/58).

To add a “post to twitter” link to your webpage, just add the following code:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

<!--
{
document.write('<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Reading%20at%20'+window.location+'">Post to Twitter</a>');
}
// -->
</SCRIPT>

Note that each %20 in HTML hyperlinks will be replaced with a space. The above example should work on virtually any webpage. If you want to modify the twitter post from “reading at [url]” to “shopping at [url]“, just change the text within the link. If you want to go a step further and make your item “details” page say “buying [product name] from [url]“, you could use:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

<!--
{
document.write('<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Buying%20a%20!---DESC---%20from%20'+window.location+'">Post to Twitter</a>');
}
// -->
</SCRIPT>

*note: The blog software will likely either break this up into multiple lines and/or not display the entire code snippet, however when you copy and paste, it should re-assemble everything correctly…

The resulting post to Twitter would say something like “PDG is buying a small gadget at site.com/[url of small gadget page]” . With many twitterers having hundreds or thousands of people following their ‘twits’, how valuable could them updating their status in this manner be for your site?!?

MySpace

Adding a link to your MySpace account allows your customers to learn a little more about you, and hopefully become a ‘friend’ (e.g. a loyal follower and purchaser!). Just add a link to your pages to “find us on MySpace”, with the link pointed directly to your http://www.myspace.com/[your user name]. Hopefully, satisfied customers will also link to your web site, in turn introducing you and your products to their friends as well.

These are just a few ways that you can leverage the mega-power of social networking sites to increase traffic, revenue and profits for your business, but don’t here… Look for your own unique ways to implement or use these services to get a leg up on the competition. Any one of these services can help a) adds legitimate/useful links to your site (that both other humans and search engine robots can follow) b) increase your brand awareness c) increase revenue/profits and d) let you get away with a little bit of fun at work.