Now to this week's interesting news.

Local B2B SEO

If your company specializes in B2B on a local level, this is an excellent article on getting started with an SEO campaign for your site.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/local-b2b-seo/446339/

How to Respond to Negative Reviews

At some point, it is bound to happen; you will get a negative review. How you respond to it makes all the difference in the world.

https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-respond-to-negative-reviews/

Google Business Profile

Google Business profiles have started rolling out product performance metrics. Now you can see which products are performing best in the searches. It is still a pain that they have to be added manually, though.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-business-profile-products-performance-metrics-33313.html

WP Engine ending .htaccess Support

Years ago, I did performance testing against using .htaccess files and using an httpd.conf file, it looks like people are finally taking notice of the performance improvements.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wp-engine-ending-htaccess-support/447383/

Google Signed Exchanges

Starting soon, your site will be able to get all the benefits of AMP, like preloading, without actually being an AMP site.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-signed-exchanges-to-desktop-search-33305.html

Google Update

Google has rolled out a new algorithm update for their search. Did your rankings take a hit? Or did they increase in the last week?

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-algorithm-update-on-april-20th-33292.html

Amazon Expanding Prime Delivery

Does your company use 3PL? If so, Amazon might be a choice in the future; they are starting to offer Prime delivery to more and more businesses to take advantage of their logistics network.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/amazon-ramps-up-fedex-ups-rivalry-by-expanding-prime-to-third-parties.html

The Future of Commerce

How is commerce and e-commerce trending in the future? This article suggests in a more profound personalized way and offering the best customer experience.

https://www.the-future-of-commerce.com/2022/04/27/the-future-of-commerce-trends/

How to ask for a Review

This is a must for any business; you have to ask for reviews. The dominant group of people leaving reviews on their own are people that have had a negative experience. It is a must to ask satisfied customers for reviews to offset the negative reviews.

https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-ask-for-a-review/

As always, if you have a question or comment about any of the articles, we can discuss them below. Have a great day and happy selling.

Changing URLS

Please don't do it. Once a URL has been established, there are only a few good reasons to change them; testing is not one.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dont-change-urls-and-change-them-back-seo-33237.html

Local SEO

Looking for a way to catapult your local SEO rankings? Here is a unique strategy from Neil Patel.

https://neilpatel.com/blog/8-unusual-link-building-strategies-thatll-catapult-your-rankings/

SEO to Avoid

Are you having difficulty determining if a technique is worth doing or spammy? Here is a list of SEO tactics you should avoid.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/avoid-stupid-seo-tactics/423560/

Automated Order Tracking

Does your business have a hard time keeping up with order phone calls? CalltoTrack can help reduce the amount of "Where is my order" calls you receive.

https://dh42.com/blog/calltotrack/

Instagram Product Tagging

Instagram has now opened its product tagging feature to all US accounts and what this means for you.

https://www.retaildive.com/news/instagram-expands-product-tagging-to-all-users/622280/

Best Social Media Posting Times

Are you having difficulty figuring out when the best conversion time for your social media postings is? This article will shed some insight to help you nail it down.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/best-times-to-post-on-social-media-in-2022/446255/

E-commerce Navigation

Is your navigation the best it can be for your customers? Seamless navigations produce more sales if customers can find what they are looking for.

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/visitors-seek-effortless-navigation-and-design

Does Word Count Equal Performance?

Word count has been a metric most SEOs, and content producers rely on, but does it work for ranking?

https://neilpatel.com/blog/word-count-impact-performance/

Copywriting Mistakes

When writing the copy for your website, you have to remember that everything is a conversion factor. Does your copy have mistakes that might lower your conversion rate?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/copywriting-mistakes/445807/

Title Tags

Are you considering rewriting the title tags to pages on your site? If so, you might avoid these patterns.

https://moz.com/blog/title-tag-patterns-to-avoid

As always, if you have any questions or comments about any of the articles, drop them below, and let’s discuss.

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Google Trusted Store Badge

Google has now implemented a Trusted Store badge in Google Shopping, hoping this will help sellers convert more. This seems like a great opportunity to increase conversions, especially in over-saturated markets.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-trusted-store-badge-live-33230.html

Manging SEO Alone

Only one person, with not enough hours in the day? Moz has a few tips on making the most out of your time when optimizing your site.

https://moz.com/blog/get-things-done-as-only-seo

Google Review Update

Google has announced the new product reviews update has launched. This update is only for the English language but will soon expand to other languages.

https://www.seroundtable.com/march-2022-google-product-reviews-update-live-33235.html

Shopify Multi-Country Sales

Are you considering targeting other countries with your Shopify store? Shopify has a great blog post on how you can effectively manage to make your site multi-country accessible.

https://www.shopify.com/blog/shopify-store-multiple-countries

Differentiating Your Brand

Does your e-commerce brand have an identity? Big Commerce has a few ways to set your store apart from your competitors to differentiate your brand.

https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/emerging-brand-differentiators-eystudios/

Post-Pandemic Sales Dropping

With the pandemic ending in most places, e-commerce sales are starting to recede, but they are staying above pre-pandemic levels. If you see a sales drop, do not worry, this is likely the reasoning behind it.

https://internetretailing.net/themes/themes/shoppers-continue-to-buy-online-more-than-before-the-pandemic-but-less-than-in-lockdown-brc-24665

Does Negative SEO Work?

Does negative SEO work? Google says no. SEO people think otherwise. I believe it is impossible to distinguish bad SEO from negative SEO, so while Google tries, it will always miss the mark.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-again-disavows-negative-seo-33224.html

Best CMS for Core Web Vitals?

We all know that core web vitals are essential and a ranking factor. Out of the box, which CMSs have the best core web vitals?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/top-6-cms-for-core-web-vitals/445309/#close

Rising Social Media Platforms

Every day new social media platforms are created. It is hard to tell which ones to focus on, though. Hootsuite has come up with a list of the up can coming platforms. Substack even made the list.

https://blog.hootsuite.com/new-social-media-apps-platforms/

Image Alt Tags

Have you wondered how to handle the image Alt Text on your site? Straight from the search engines' mouth, Google gives you their recommendations.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/alt-text-seo/444951/

If you have any questions or comments about the articles above, use the comment section below to let me know your thoughts. Have a great week, and I look forward to my SEO Friday article!

What is this method?

It is super simple. We run contests. Specifically, we use an app called Gleam to run our contests and reward social interaction with entries to the contest. The Gleam app is paid; we use the $50 a month plan to get the most out of our contests. After the contest, we cancel the Gleam plan.

Giveaway Prizes

We pick a product with the broadest appeal for a prize because we want as many entries as possible. If you sell a niche product, it might be best to go with another product as the prize to get the most traction from your contest. Of the different products we have tried, here are the ones that work best:

• Airpods / Samsung Buds

• Apple / Samsung Watches

• Televisions

• Amazon Giftcards

• Apple / Samsung Phones

Some of these items can get pretty pricey, but the higher the item's price, the more interaction you should expect. I typically start with a pair of Airpods for most clients. With the prize and Gleam fee, we can keep the contest below $200. When we look at the whole point of the contest being to gain social signals and reviews, no advertising programs come close to generating these results. I typically run the competitions for 60 days but expect traffic to drop dramatically after the week.

Contest Entries

When I set up the different entry methods, I try to be strategic with the ways to get the most return. Below are some of the most common ones I use:

Retweet a Tweet - This is pretty self-explanatory. You can make a tweet about a hot product and use targeted hashtags to gain more traction.

Follow on Twitter - This entry method helps gain followers that are real people, not fake bought accounts.

Blog Comment - If you use a comment service like Disqus, you can request people comment on your blog posts. When users comment on a Disqus post, you get several effects. It helps you get discovered on Disqus, Google sees the interaction, and your customers see a lively blog.

Refer Friends - Another simple way to expand the reach of your contest. This method allows the entrants to refer over their friends for entries.

Visit a Page

I rely on this entry method the most. It is the most versatile method to use in your giveaways and creates the most value. Some of the other ways, like Facebook, are crippled down to comply with Facebook's terms of service. Using the Visit a Page, you can get around that limitation.

Another way to use the Visit a Page method is to ask for reviews. You can either ask for product reviews or site reviews as a whole. We give the most entries to this entry method to encourage people to use it. One thing you have to be aware of is operating in line with the terms of service for where you are collecting reviews. I use titles like "If you have used or products, leave us a review." Honest, to the point, and not asking anyone to break a TOS agreement.

Asking people to like your Facebook page or post is another way to use this entry method as well Since the Facebook option in the app is crippled, we use the Visit a Page option to get those entries. How you can use the Visit a Page is nearly limitless.

Promoting Your Contest

Here comes the easiest part of running the contest, promoting it. When I promote a competition, I follow a strategy of promoting it to the list of customers first, then to the internet as a whole. If you do not have a list of customers, or your list is very small, do not worry. You can promote the contest to the internet as a whole and get great responses. Promoting it to your existing customers can help secure better and more honest reviews and more authentic social interactions. I heavily rely on Reddit for contest promotion simply because it works. Below is the list of places I promote new contests. As a note, follow the formatting and submission rules, as to not get your contest removed.

• r/contest

• r/giveaways

• r/sweepstakes

• Contest Girl

• Yo Free Samples

• Giveaway Frenzy

Most contest sites actively scrape Reddit for contests and repost the contests to their sites. I can see about 20-30 sites regularly do this from the past promotions we have run. That means there is no need to post your contest to their site actively. They will do it automatically and build a backlink back to your site.

Keeping the Contest Active

If you notice, I did not mention using a mailing list signup as a form of entry I use. That is because the social interactions already scrape their email addresses. To keep the contest active, I find an interval, say once a week and change out the contest entry methods. Then I will email the people who have already entered using our mailing list. This keeps them coming back and providing more social interactions, reviews, comments, or likes to your site. The best part about the whole system is that these are real humans who could be discovering your site or product for the first time. We typically get low conversion rates of users to buyers during the contests, but we still do get conversions.

If you have any questions about using contests to promote your site, you can ask in the comments below

Collecting Data

Collecting accurate data is fundamental to your success. Data collection is one of the essential parts of SEO; without it, you are flying blind. As time progresses, we need to know where our traffic is coming from, what we are doing that is working, what is not working, and what we can improve on.

Google Analytics

https://analytics.google.com/

I feel like this one is popular enough that not much time needs to be spent on it. Unless you are in the EU or in the EU and not following GDPR, your site requires Google Analytics. If you are not using a SaaS platform, you will more than likely need a plugin or a module to install Google Analytics. Installing the code directly works only somewhat. You will want to pass all transactional data and as much information as possible to Google Analytics. A plugin or module is the best choice to get the most data. If you are using WordPress and WooCommerce, make sure you use a plugin designed for e-commerce and not for traditional blogs.

Matomo

https://matomo.org/

I mention Matomo solely for the readers in the EU who should be abiding by GDPR. They have two software versions, self-hosted and a paid cloud product. The self-hosted will be the best value if you are hosting your site already.

Google Tag Manager

https://tagmanager.google.com/#/home

Tag Manager is not a statistics program, but it does need to be mentioned here. If you advertise your site on multiple platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Google Adwords, and others, each will want you to put a tracking script on your site. These scripts will slow your site down considerably. What Google Tag Manager does is acts like a go between, passing the data the other scripts need,without adding bloat to your site. If you are already running other 3rd party tracking scripts, it would make sense to uninstall them from your site, install Google Tag Manager to your site, and then run your analytics program from the tag container too. If you have a live chat widget, you can also put this in there as well. For chats, I like to set a timeout delay with Tag Manager where it waits 10 seconds after the page loads to append that script in. It keeps the site running fast. But setting up Tag Manager is an article in itself.

Google Search Console

https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome

Search Console is a free tool by Google that every website owner should use. It allows you to see insights into your site as Google sees your site. Things such as how many of your pages Google has indexed, where you rank for keywords, and your click-through rate for the words your site ranks for. All around good stuff, essential data you will need to know.

Google Business

https://www.google.com/business/

Google Business is one I mentioned in last week's article about building citations. You can add your business for free, but you can also track its views across google products. You can also add products and short posts to your profile so that they will show on the search results pages for your business.

Bing Local Business

https://www.bingplaces.com/

While nowhere near as popular as Google Business, some people still use Bing. Bing also white labels their search to places like Amazon and DuckDuckGo, so you will have a slightly more extensive reach of stats. Plus, it is how you manage your business on Bing.

SEO Tools

Next, we need to talk about tracking tools. These tools can come with hefty monthly price tags (most are worth it), but a few services offer paired-down versions of their tools for free. This is where we will be focusing to stay on budget.

ahrefs Webmaster Tools

https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools

ahrefs is one of the best free tools for your site. It provides a ton of information about on-site issues to help you get started in your SEO journey. It will let you know what their domain rank for your domain is, how many backlinks and referring domains your site has, and some other cool features. One thing it does not do is position tracking.

Setting up ahrefs is pretty easy. All you have to do is go to their site to set up your free account. You will need to verify your email and enter your domain. From there, ahrefs will do an initial crawl on your site.

Click through the left navigation bar and check out some of their features. Some things will require a paid account, but there are a lot of valuable free tools. The site audit feature will come in handy in a later article about on-site SEO. You will also need to connect your Google Search Console to ahrefs as well, to get the best quality data.

SEMRush

https://semrush.com

SEMRush is another tool that provides a lot of value for free users. You can audit up to 100 pages of your site and track up to 10 keywords for ranking positions. Another handy feature is you can have a glimpse at your competitor's data. Below is an example of what shopify.com looks like in SEMRush.

SEMRush will be one of those tools we will rely heavily upon. The number of features can be a bit overwhelming. I will quickly run through them and show you how to set them up. The first thing you will need to set up is the site audit; it is relatively straightforward. All you have to do is enter your website address. The free version is limited to 100 pages. For most new sites, that should not be a problem.

Next, you will want to set up the backlink audit. You will need to enter your domain; then, you will need to connect to your Google Search Console. They have a quirky way; you need to add a user to your account. Once you do that, click "Check Connection." From there, it will start to import your backlinks. It will take some time to populate, so we might as well begin position tracking.

Go to position tracking on the left-hand navigation. When you click add new keywords, it will populate words from your site. You only get ten keywords to track, so make the best out of them. One thing to keep in mind is to be reasonable at first with your keywords. A new site will not rank in the top 100 for a term like "supplements" right off the bat. You might have a better chance of ranking for your lesser-known brands keywords. Keywords like "brain-x supplements" or "affordable supplements."

Once you add your keywords, it will take some time to collect the data as well. You can use this time to look at the different tools SEMRush provides. Some of the tools are very advanced, while others are straightforward. This early in our SEO journey, it's best to focus on the backlink audit, position tracking, and site-auditor.

Once your site audit comes in, it will be something like the image above. You can browse through the different errors to see which issues you need to fix for your site. Thankfully, most e-commerce platforms make most of these issues easy to fix without requiring a developer.

Next, your backlink audit should come in as well. Hopefully, it looks better than the one pictured above. If not, SEMRush provides you with an interface to disavow your toxic backlinks. You are limited to 10 at a time, but it is still beneficial.

Conclusion

Now that we have some basic monitoring set up, next week we can get back to performing actual SEO work that will increase the ranking of your site. Join me next week where we will be going over on-site factors, using the tools from this article.

If you have any questions about the tools we went over today, ask them below and I will try to answer as best as possible.

Out of Stock Products

This is one I have long suspected to be the case. There had to be a reason for all of the structured data Google wants from your store, right?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-out-of-stock-products-may-impact-search-visibility/444500/

Content Marketing Ideas for May

Are you having a hard time coming up with content marketing ideas for the next month? This article has a few good suggestions.

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/5-content-marketing-ideas-for-may-2022

10 Do-it-Yourself SEO Tips

Everyone loves do-it-yourself SEO ideas. It is a great way to save money and make money in the long run.

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/10-do-it-yourself-seo-tips-to-save-money

Google Niche-Specific Algorithms

This is a great question asked during one of Google's community chats. Does Google use different SEO metrics for different niches?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/niche-specific-google-algorithms/444385/

Great Popup Examples

Are you using popups on your site? Do they convert? Niel Patel has some great examples of high converting popups you can use.

https://neilpatel.com/blog/website-popup-examples/

Is no-follow a Dampening Factor?

We all know that nofollow links are not a ranking factor, but have you ever considered that they might be an anti-ranking factor?

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-nofollow-dampening-factor-33169.html

Are Mentions Treated Like Links?

Speaking of links, does Google use brand mentions like links as a ranking factor? Hear it straight from Google's mouth.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/does-google-treat-unlinked-mentions-like-links/444596/#close

New Google Business in Store Products

Google Business is now rolling out listings for in-store only products for your Google Business profile. This is excellent if you have a brick and mortar shop

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-local-in-store-products-33199.html

How to Value an E-commerce Business

Considering buying out a competitor or just buying an e-commerce business? This article from E-commerce Times gives some insights on how to value an e-commerce business.

https://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/how-to-value-an-e-commerce-business-87471.html

Getting into Social Commerce

Have you dipped your toes in social commerce yet? For some markets, it is essential to start learning about it.

https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/social-commerce-examples

Have any questions or comments about any of the articles? Leave them below!

Easy Clear Shipping

Over the years, some of our clients have opted to offer live rates with every available carrier option. Others go with flat rate shipping or even free shipping. Our most successful clients provide a hybrid solution, restricting the choices to only three levels and providing an easy, clear level on each page. Like:

• Free Shipping Over $50

• Every Order Ships Free

• Free Shipping on Custom Orders

Customers know their shipping pricing and policies with larger competitors like Walmart, Target, and Amazon. But one thing they do is have their shipping policy on every page. The average customer does not have time to make it to your checkout, register, put in their address, and finally see what shipping will cost. Most customers will bounce if they cannot see the shipping cost on a non-cart page. If you use only live shipping rates, you leave money on the table.

Free or Flat Rate

Either works for most circumstances, but it is always beneficial to look at the broader market. If you sell clothing, what are other clothiers doing with their shipping? Or Autoparts, what strategy is your competition using? Customers have been trained to expect different policies in different verticals, so your approach must align with your vertical.

We see a slight conversion bump for clients who use free shipping across the board over clients who use free over a specific amount. But not all conversion increases are good as well. If you are losing money or breaking even on the lower price orders, it does not make sense to try to capture those sales.

Spam Your Policy

By spamming your policy, I suggest having it all over your site. If customers enter on the homepage, have it there. Have it next to the add to cart buttons. Maybe even have a persistent top bar on every page. Information gets lost in the noise of e-commerce sites. With our largest clients, we often find that 99% of their customer support requests can be answered with existing information on the site that the customer did not read. You want your customer to read the shipping cost to help close the sale. It needs to be placed prominently. Take target as an example; in the image below, you can see they put it right next to the add to cart button.

Walmart does the same thing as well. The area next to the add to cart button and pricing box is the most read area on a product page.

Return Shipping

If you are in a market where free return shipping is not legislated, it is essential to have your return shipping policy as well. Users expect free return shipping in specific markets, like clothing and shoes. Other markets like books and technology, not so much. If you are in a market where free return shipping is becoming expected, it will benefit you by putting your policy right next to your shipping policy. Zappos is a great example, incorporating both.

Conclusion

If you are still looking at your site's shipping as a way to get products to customers, you need to make a change. Your shipping is also a way to create customers. Your competitors are making conversions because they make their shipping policies known.

Today we are going to start with beginning link building for your site. Today I will help you get your first 30 backlinks built with this article. Some of these links may seem obvious, but they all provide an excellent foundation for starting your SEO journey.

Prerequisites

You need three basic things to supercharge your SEO journey and start it correctly.

A website

An Address

A Phone number

I get a lot of push back from site owners about having a publishable address and phone number. But the truth is, to build the best quality backlinks, you need to have both. Google is huge on inferring information from other sources that pertain to websites. Having both of these pieces of information relays to Google that you are a legitimate business.

You can set your address private for almost all the sources we will use, so you do not have to worry about people showing up at your house or warehouse. The phone number is a bit different, though. You will need to use it from time to time. Some of the listing services require that you verify either through text message or a code to your phone. My solution for this is to use Twilio. If you are not familiar with them, Twilio provides all kinds of phone services cheaply. A phone number costs around $1 per month from them, plus they give you $10 in credit to sign up.

Sign up to Twilio

Once you sign up, you can manage your phone number. I recommend that clients forward the number to their phone while they need to verify listings. Then once they are confirmed, you can just set a recording on the phone number telling callers to contact you through your website or email. Using this method gives you the ultimate flexibility. If you already have a business phone number, you can skip this and use your business number. You get a phone number for free for around ten months, and you do not have to expose your personal phone number.

https://twilio.com

Email Address

I recommend creating a new email address to handle submissions. Having an email address dedicated just to submissions will help keep your inbox clean. In the end, you will be subscribed to a ton of marketing newsletters and update emails.

A Note on Nofollow vs DoFollow links

I have not separated this list into nofollow versus dofollow links. While Google indeed says that nofollow links do not help SEO, I do not believe it is that simple. When Google states that, on the face, it is 100% true. They are not counting nofollow links to your website's backlink profile. But that is not the whole story. When you claim listings at places that offer nofollow links, in many instances, these directories share data to sites that create dofollow links. So while the initial link did not help you, the subsequent links that are created from partner sites do help you.

Another factor often overlooked is the conversion factor. When buying from a site for the first time, some customers Google the website. Do you want hundreds of listing to show up when people Google your site name or none? Seeing the listing promotes trust in buyers who might worry your business is a scam.

The last point is, that while some of the links are nofollow, Google does draw information from some of these sources for information about your business. So while they might not help with SEO, they can help users with questions about your business, which can lead to sales.

Building the listings

Now for the fun part of actually building the listings and backlinks. Keeping track of the links over time is essential, especially if you need to update company information. All of the backlinks will require different amounts of data. I recommend using a text file and copy-pasting information from the text file to keep the listings consistent. That way, it will spell check for you as well. Generally, I use the free version of Google Docs for this. I also use a Google Sheet to paste all of the live backlinks I create.

Creating listings is going to be a time-consuming process. The different sites ask for different pieces of data, so you will need to write descriptions for your website of varying lengths and be prepared to select categories for your business.

The last thing to remember is that all of the sites below allow you to create free profiles with backlinks. With that being said, most do offer paid services as well. Some of the sites do make it very hard to find the free services, but they are there. You might have to look for the right button for free listings or remove the paid listing from your cart. I am not recommending using any of the sites for a paid listing. Just get the free ones for the purpose of this article.

Google Business

Google Business is one of the essential backlinks you can build for your business when you are starting to build backlinks. Google does require you have an address, and in a lot of cases, it makes you verify the address with a postcard. In some cases, they will accept calling you. Either way, get the process started as soon as you can. It usually takes a week or two to complete. Do not worry about exposing your address here if you do not want it published. Google will let you hide your address and give a service area. One of the best parts about getting the Google Business listing is that other services will copy your information from Google. So in building this link, you are also letting automated services like phone directories make listings for your site too.

https://www.google.com/business/

Bing Places

While not near as popular as Google, Bing places are considered a high authority directory. They also require a phone number and address. In some cases, they can verify your site through your Google listing. In others, they will send a postcard as well.

https://www.bingplaces.com/

Social Media Type Sites

Facebook

Every business needs a Facebook page. Even if you do not plan on posting, specific demographics still use it. Claim your page, enter your business information, and link it to your site.

https://facebook.com

Twitter

Twitter is another social media property you need to claim as well. It allows customers to contact your business quickly and helps build out your link profile.

https://twitter.com

Instagram

While being a great place for images and product marketing, Instagram is another place that allows you to backlink to your site. You can claim your profile through your Facebook listing and set up the link back to your site.

https://instagram.com

Youtube

Even if you do not plan on posting videos, you can still create a YouTube profile for your company and backlink it back to your website. It might come in handy when you start getting into videos.

https://youtube.com

Linkedin

LinkedIn is the place for businesses. It is a great place to post articles about your business, and having a business profile allows your website to be linked to your profile.

https://linkedin.com

Pinterest

Marketing on Pinterest is super easy; it mainly includes photos of your products with short descriptions. Even if you do not plan to use Pinterest, it makes an excellent backlink for your site.

https://pintrest.com

Flickr

All products have images, making Flickr a great place to add your brand. They also let you link your brand in your bio, giving you another backlink.

https://flickr.com

GitHub

Not a coder? Don't worry; you can still claim your organization's Github Page. Then you can link the organizational page back to your website.

https://github.com

Reddit

If you are not familiar with Reddit, you might be behind the curve. It is one of the most popular social and news sites. Reddit has strict anti-spam controls, but this does not preclude you from creating a profile for your business and linking a self-post to your profile.

https://reddit.com

Medium

Their site is geared more towards articles. If you plan on having a blog, you can post to Medium as well. In either case, you can create a profile here that links back to your website.

https://medium.com

Business Listing Sites

Yell

Yell is a phone book type directory. Having a listing at Yell will also aggregate your link to other services and sites they share data with.

https://yell.com

Trustpilot

Eventually, your business will start getting reviews at TrustPilot, so you might as well get out in front of them and add your business. Contrary to popular belief, they offer free listings and management of reviews.

https://trustpilot.com

HotFrog

Hotfrog is one of the oldest link directories on the internet. Adding your business here will gain you backlinks on other sites too. They are in data sharing programs with other websites as well.

https://hotfrog.com

BOTW

Best of the Web is another older link directory that is still popular. Adding your link here allows you to gain a backlink and control your profile on their site.

https://botw.org/

SiteJabber

SiteJabber has become more of a review aggregate in the last five years. They collect reviews from other properties and display them on your listing page.

https://www.sitejabber.com/business-solutions

CrunchBase

Dedicated to startups, CrunchBase will let any business create a listing on their site. A great way to give a little bit of information about your company and gain another backlink.

https://crunchbase.com

Yelp

By now, most people have heard of Yelp. Yelp allows people to review your business and add information about it. You can claim your profile for free and set up your business. Yelp will add another backlink to your profile.

https://yelp.com

City Search

City Search is a local guide that lets businesses create a listing in their city. Having a profile here will get shared with their partner directories to make even more backlinks.

https://citysearch.com

Merchant Circle

Similar to City Search, Merchant Circle is also a business listing directory. They partner with other sites, so creating a backlink here gets shared around their network.

https://merchantscircle.com

Manta

Manta is another business directory where you can claim a listing. The data from Manta is aggregated out to partner sites, increasing your link reach.

https://manta.com

All Address

This is another phonebook-type site that lets you create a free listing. Claiming your listing here will also allow you backlink back to your site.

https://alladdress.com

Alignable

A mix between LinkedIn and Facebook gives you Alignable. You can claim your free business listing here and connect locally with others in your industry while getting a backlink to your site.

https://alignable.com

YellowBot

Yet another phonebook-type site that allows you to create a free business listing. YellowBot also shares its data in its network of sites, creating other profiles for your site.

https://yellowbot.com

hubbiz

hubbiz is another site classified as a business listing site. You can create a free business profile on their site and have it linked back to your site.

https://hub.biz

Cylex

Cylex offers a variety of locally focused business listing sites and aggregates their data to other services. Creating a listing here will let you create a backlink to your site and create listings on other sites.

https://cylex.us.com

Cybo

This is another example of a business directory site, similar to a phonebook. You can create a profile for your business on CYBO that will link back to your site.

https://cybo.com

VyMaps

VyMaps is a cross between a business listing site and a map site. You can create a business profile here that will let you link your social media accounts and create a backlink to your website.

https://vymaps.com

iBegin

Yet another business listing site that has been around since the dawn of the modern internet. Claim your profile here and for another backlink to your site.

https://ibegin.com

Creating backlinks manually can be time-consuming, but doing so pays off in dividends in terms of SEO for your website. As I mentioned before, it does also help build trust in your brand, so it is a win-win.

Navigation

Navigation is an interesting issue on e-commerce websites. Some companies go for huge mega menus, while others invest in hamburger menus. Which one is better?

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/the-best-navigation-for-ecommerce-sites

Average Cart Metrics

How does your site fare in the average cart metrics from your country? Sometimes, these metrics are hard to nail down, but this article gives some new insights.

https://www.practicalecommerce.com/charts-average-order-cart-abandons-more

Social Media

Do you struggle with content for social media sometimes? It is a struggle a lot of small to medium brands share. Cross-posting could be a way to help alleviate a bit of that struggle.

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/cross-posting

Blog Post Tags

So we all have blogs, and at least some of us use tags. But do the tags help SEO?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/blog-post-tags-seo/392067/

Google Trusted Store

Google has launched a new Trust Store program that will give your site a nifty badge in Google Shopping. Presumably hoping that it will help increase conversions.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-trusted-store-badge-shopping-experience-scorecard-33164.html

Building Backlinks?

Search Engine Journal has a great list of 21 website directories that are still relevant to build backlinks from to your site.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/valuable-web-directories-list/431921/#close

SEO for Events

With summer coming up, a lot of shops have events planned. Get the most out of your events by using local SEO for events.

https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-seo-for-events-what-you-need-to-know/

Optimizing Google Business

A Google my Business page is essential for any business wanting to improve SEO. But how do you optimize it to the fullest?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/local-seo/optimize-google-business-profile/

If you have any questions or comments about any of the articles, leave them below and we can discuss.

Have a Great Day!

Cryptocurrency Pros

There are a few pros to taking cryptocurrencies, not a ton, but they are still worth noting as a store owner. 

1. Immunity to charge-backs. This is one of the most attractive reasons to accept cryptocurrency; charge backs just cannot happen with its design. 

2. Reduced fraud is another reason that goes hand-in-hand with the charge-backs. Since there is no reversing a crypto charge, is it ever really a fraudulent charge? 

3. The possibility that the payments for your products can appreciate overnight and be worth more than the initial transaction. 

4. Somewhat anonymity. This works to some degree, depending on what you are selling. If it is digital, anonymity is higher, but a lot of that goes out the window when a product is shipped. 

Cryptocurrency Cons

While some of the pros for accepting cryptocurrencies do sound nice, like everything in life there are some cons associated with taking cryptocurrencies as well. 

1. You can lose money on transactions. This is the big one for a lot of people. If you take an order on a Friday and by Monday, the cryptocurrency has dropped 20% in value, you have lost 20% of that order if you have not cashed out. 

2. Increase accounting costs. Another factor that comes into play is your accountant has another account they need to look after and figure into your books. 

3. The learning curve and having more on your plate is another consideration. There is a learning curve involved with accepting and understanding crypto. Do you have the time to manage that and keep an eye on the crypto market? 

4. Refund issues. There is controversy about handling refunds with crypto since the value can change fast. If someone pays the equivalent of $50 but wants a refund at a later date and the value of their payment is $60, what do you do? 

Now that we have outlined the essential pros and cons, we can get into the actual question, should your store take crypto? Keep in mind, when I talk about accepting cryptocurrencies, I am speaking in addition to your usual payment methods. In no way am I suggesting becoming a crypto-only store. Across all of the stores we manage, I have never seen crypto account for more than 3% of all payments to a store. 

Demographic 

One of the biggest concerns is your customer demographics. Would your primary demographic care or even ever use crypto? If you target an older demographic accepting crypto is primarily a waste and only beneficial in a few narrow sets of circumstances. Off-the-grid verticals generally have an older demographic as their customers, but they are also a vertical where the older demographic is onboard with using crypto for some of their transactions. Older users generally have a more challenging time with e-commerce, resulting in more customer service interactions and calls based on our experience. The only times we can see them bleed over to being amenable to using crypto are paranoia-based products. 

Products

Another consideration for accepting crypto payments is, do your products lend themselves to a demographic that uses crypto? This is much like the age demographic but mainly centers around customers' financial position. Sure, you might have a younger demographic that purchases on your site, but does that demographic overlap with crypto users? As a broad statement, most crypto holders are at a financial place where they are investing. Does this financial state align with any part of your primary demographic? 

Cash-Flow

Your business's free cash flow is a significant consideration in accepting cryptocurrencies. Is your business operating on a shoestring, where you have to use money from every purchase to fulfill the order? If that is the case, I would warn against accepting crypto. The unstable nature and longer cashout times can hinder your business operations. Expect 1-3 days longer to cash out payments than if you were using a typical gateway like Stripe. The instability presents itself when a $500 transaction is only worth $400 at the time of cashing out. If neither of these concern you, then it is a moot point. 

As a whole, if your business can support crypto without having cash-flow worries and your demographic overlaps with the crypto user demographic, I say go for it. If you stay on top of the payments, you can cash out before any significant currency swings. Or, if you have the free capital, you can site on the currency and see how it performs. It could be a new investment conduit for you and your business in the long run. The verticals I have seen best perform with crypto are:

• Nootropics 

• Gray Area Supplements

• Electronics

• Prepping / Doomsday Supplies

• Solar and Offgrid Products

• Police / Military Equipment and Surplus

• Digital Products

The verticals we have seen the poorest and no adoption are:

• Housewares

• Non-bulk foods

• Durable Medical Products 

• Clothing

• Bookings

• Construction Supplies

There you have it; from the above thought process, you can determine whether accepting cryptocurrencies is the right move for your business. There are some more no-frills ways to accept cryptocurrencies, but I tend to shy away from them because of the learning curve required for shop owners. As for a recommendation on which service to use, I generally do not have one. With payments and gateways, I like to stick to the top-tier choices. Paypal and Coinbase are good choices for accepting it; they have the broadest support across most e-commerce platforms. They also make it easier for shop owners with their reporting. 

Mondays

On Mondays, I am going to post actionable e-commerce tips. These are things you should be able to do yourself to increase your revenue or long-term sales goals. These posts will focus on sales strategies, marketing strategies, changes you can make on your site, and other actionable changes you can make to increase your sales.

Wednesday

As a shop owner, it is helpful to stay up on the latest news dealing with e-commerce. It gives you an idea of what might be on the horizon, or maybe an interesting new feature that the platform you use for your shop is adding. I will be posting a rundown of exciting news or SEO articles of the last week, including a brief commentary for Wednesdays.

Friday

Friday is for SEO. That is when I will post SEO tips and tricks. As I have mentioned before, these will be in-depth enough that you can follow them and produce results. No generic tips, like write better content or build more backlinks. I will show you where to build the backlinks with site lists. I will show you the changes to make to your site to help increase your rankings. I will step by step them out to make it as easy as possible for anyone to follow, no matter your technical expertise.

Random Posts

Every month I will have a random post or two. These can be posts like site critiques or if there are some remarkable new changes in the e-commerce market we need to talk about. I like interactive posts. It helps to keep the list lively and allows me to give more one-on-one pointers.

I am Lesley Paone. Let me tell you a bit about myself. I have spent the last 15 years working with e-commerce sites. I started in a pure development role, but I migrated into more consulting, growth hacking, and SEO-focused roles as time went on. I am a top poster and moderator of the PrestaShop forums for over 10 years, as well as being a top poster on the SEO service Moz. In 2018 I started a fork of PrestaShop called thirty bees, which became one of the top 10 open source e-commerce software packages in the world. At the same time, I own several SaaS services that target e-commerce shops to reduce administration time and increase revenue.

Enough about that. Let's talk about what the E-commerce Accelerator is not. I am not trying to sell you on buzzwords and gimmicks. The E-commerce Accelerator is not "How I made my first million dropshipping with Shopify using Facebook ads" and provides no real direction. I am not here for views, likes, or to be an influencer. I am here to discuss strategies I have seen work and ones that fall flat. While it would be nice if every post or mail worked for every site, that is not the case. E-commerce demographics are highly specific sometimes, so there will be posts that mean nothing to your business.

Most of our topics will focus on achieving your results with as little spending as possible. I do recommend paid services from time to time, but for the most part, I will try to run through their value in either the free trial period or the first month. I have bootstrapped many businesses, and I realize the importance of getting the most without paying for it, especially when you have more sweat equity time than dollars to spend.

Let's go on this journey together and see how much we can increase your sales and rankings.