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Oct62009

7 Top Shopping Ecommerce Sites

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When choosing the right kind of ecommerce platform for your shopping website business it is important you try a few different sites before you get exactly what you need.

Online Shopping

Recently launched Big Commerce are offering a great new affiliate program that allows users to create their own shopping site through their interface. It’s really a whole new step forward into the future, where getting a website up is easier then ever before.

I have been an affiliate member with Amazon for quite some time and feel it might be worth while to give Big Commerce a try out. One thing they claim which has brought my attention closer is they say their system is great for SEO.

  1. Big Commerce
    One thing I must admit I like about it after watching their demo video is you can drag and drop modules and edit or delete things really easy. Everything also seems to be run in Ajax too which is good for me as I don’t like waiting for things to load. I would say though the downfall is it seems like you can not take the code away from their server, you are more or less bound to their service. I guess which shopping application isn’t?
  2. Ebay
    One thing about ebay is they really get you alot of hits to your product, the problem is it is not like the old days where you can just list an item and it will sell no matter what. Now there are many competitors and other sellers trying to outbeat each other on price. One thing that is good about ebay though is you can add your website url underneath your item. This is a good way of leading them from there to your website
  3. Amazon
    Amazon have really done a wonderful turn around in the recent months and year or so, offering a whole range of different platforms to add to your own existing website including widgets, add ons, and astore product wich allows you to add code directly to your webpage. You can gain commissions on the products you choose to sell that are set by them. If you have your own product and you want to sell directly through their website, that is another avenue and will take some consideration on their behalf if your product is worthy enough.
  4. Cafepress
    Cafepress is great if you are just starting out or perhaps don’t have your own product but perhaps have your own design, you can submit your design and set a price above the average item cost anything that sells above this price you collect the rest in profit on. The platform is very easy to use and theme to your liking.
  5. Overstock
    Overstock is a very well known shopping search engine that has loads of quality items for sale, If you would like to use their site to sell your products then it is only good if you can list your item in the auction area. To have them list your own item in the general categories are pretty difficult as they have certain expectations and requirements similar to amazon.
  6. Yahoo Shopping
    I have heard some great things about Yahoo Shopping although I am yet to try them out. If anyone has had experience using them please let us know about it.
  7. Kaboodle
    Is also quite user friendly and allows you to list your products and tag your products so that they some up in the search engines. Quite a nice platform. You can set pricing and have your items also link directly to the source.
Oct62009

Low Cost Web Hosting

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Personally I prefer small run hosting companies as you get closer attention when support is needed. So here I have compiled a very useful list. There are loads of web hosts around at really affordable prices, just recently I decided to do some research and put together a list of hosts at very low cost.

These hosting packages are with very reputable web hosting companies and provide details on costing, price per month, disk space size allocated, bandwidth and set up costs if any.

Not on this list is Godaddy and Hostgator, the reason behind this is that they always seem to offer a bit more then the standard options and their prices vary alot due to extensive promotions!

RESELLER SPECIALS (PER MONTH)

WEB HOST

PRICE

DISK SPACE

BANDWIDTH

SETUP

Over 6 Million Customers!
1&1 Hosting
$2.00 10 GB 300 GB Free

Dotster Hosting Special
Dotster Hosting
$5.25 5 GB 250 GB Free
PowWeb Hosting - Only $7.77 per month!
Powweb Hosting
$5.77 1500 GB 15000 GB Free
1500GB storage and 15000GB bandwidth for $6.95/mo!
LunarPages Hosting
$6.95 1500 GB 15000 GB Free
InMotion Hosting - $7.95 per month
InMotion Hosting
$7.95 300 GB 2000 GB Free
iPower Hosting - $5.95 per month
iPower Hosting
$5.95 Unlimited Unlimited Free
Fat Cow Hosting - $5.50 per month
Fatcow Hosting
$5.50 Unlimited Unlimited Free
Web Hosting Pad - $1.99 per month
Web Hosting Pad
$1.99 Unlimited Unlimited Free
IX Hosting - $3.95 per month
IX Web Hosting
$3.95 Unlimited Unlimited Free
Net firms - $4.95 Per month
Netfirms Hosting
$4.95 300 GB 3000 GB Free

DEDICATED SPECIALS (PER MONTH)

WEB HOST

PRICE

DISK SPACE

BANDWIDTH

SETUP

Server Pronto - Cheapest Dedicated
ServerPronto Hosting
$32.95 40 GB 1400 GB $69.95

Im sure there will be 1 hosting company from this list that can satisfy your needs. And if you have a positive experience, I would be happy to hear about it. Please leave a comment about your experience of any of the hosts that are listed here.

Oct62009

Ping Before You Bing

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bing.com
With the newly launched search engine from Microsoft Bing, It makes sense to take advantage of getting as much exposure from there as possible, as they are spending lots of money right now and all kinds of promotions, You can also find a great comparison just for the fun of it from keywords used both from Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask and furthermore check the difference in search results from both Bing vs Google.

So, you are probably wandering what is Pinging all about or if you have a blog you may have some idea. But in a nutshell if you submit your rss feed or blog site to a ping site this tells the search engines that you’ve just updated your blog. Because search engines (and people) like to read new and fresh content they are more likely to take a wander over to your site to see what’s new.

Be sure not to get banned though from pinging and if you run wordpress I recommend you install  MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer

Here I have put together a list of pinging sites that you can submit your feed too. Make sure when you ping, you put in the url of the page that you would like to ping too, this does not mean pinging just your home page. Enjoy!

Last but not least have some fun and see how your pings come up in the search engines, give a try in Bing

Oct52009

Facebook Anonymously Ridiculous

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It was announced today on News.com.au “Facebook is ruining my parenting skills“  that facebook users have their kids going wild throwing toilet paper around the room for the few
minutes they need to quickly go online to check their friends updates.

Then I did a search on this and it seemed that there were 52,100,000 sites were coming up in the search terms for this keyphrase. Can you believe how users can be so addicted?

The Alexa tool also shows that Facebook is now the 2nd most visited site in the world, 2nd from Google, and jumped in front of Yahoo in 3rd place and Youtube in 4th.

Then I found there were hundreds of groups (1-10 of 500 pages) on facebook for addicts to join. Now think how stupid is this, there are groups you can join to try and help you get off facebook. What is the point of joining a group on facebook when you are meant to be getting of facebook?

If your in extra need I invite you to go to the facebook forum

Oct32009

Everything Else But Search Engines

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Marketing without using Search Engines

Really being an SEO professional is really about being an Internet Marketing specialist.

You have to think of all the ways in which gets you great exposure online by combining all the right strategies.

Backlinks is one thing but traffic, and exposure and authority is key!

1. Google Maps
I find when doing business with anyone, I tend to check out how they are placed in Google maps, and check out their main head offices through google maps. It is also great exposure if you can get listed in google maps.You will be surprised how many people use “google maps” when searching for businesses in a particular area.

2. Youtube Videos
I know of many speakers and people who are involved in conferences that create videos for business and it’s a great way for anyone to take you seriously when doing business with you. Not only that the chances of getting hits to your website is quite high and the amount of viewers in Youtube are billions. As stated by Aaron Wall if you are not using video you are losing 15% of your potential website traffic and 40% sales conversions.

3. Twitter
Sad but true, those of you who ever hated the thought of getting into twitter, now is a must. It really increases your chances of users seeing what you do in small text like sms comment. Not only that the idea is to have more users following you then you following them, and if you tweet interesting enough users will follow you, It is a great way to get known and perhaps brand yourself .

4. Facebook Fan and Groups
The social media has really become more then just a friend finder, With a Facebook account you can create a group, and have hundred of thousands of potential friends or associates be part of this group. Because Facebook has now 300 million users and is the most active social community in the world then for marketing purposes not being a part of  this site will lose your chances of being noticed.

5. Yahoo Directory
Although the directory is filled with loads of links it is also being visited alot by hundred of thousands. There are alot of people that like to do business and go directly to a directory to find a business who they need their services for. I guess if anyone can not afford $299 then perhaps they are not really someone I may want to do business with, so in many ways it is a good way to have someone take you seriously being listed in there.

6. Wikipedia
To be listed in Wikipedia is not an easy task, but once you are there you can expect loads of traffic. I know this for a fact because I have Exploroo listed in there, and it is one of the most visited sites Exploroo gets. Visitors find Wikipedia to be an authority site, a bit like an open source Bible.

7. CNN, BBC
Having a news company publish news about you online is extremely valuable. Not only do you get loads of traffic from this, but you also make yourself very trust worthy and get looked at seriously. If you want to also get some media attention and are not a business try doing something amazing through Guinness Book Website or Sponsor a charity Event or Club in ways other then money. Clean Rubbish Days were also a big hit back in the day!

8. Email Marketing
If your site is not doing email marketing you are missing out on alot of your current clients coming back to you for more and more offers.

9. Affiliate
Affiliate is a great way for other site owners to spread the word out for you and add your website banner to their website.

If there is something else here you feel you can contribute or think should be up here, please feel free to comment

Sep282009

Link Building Tips using Alexa

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Here I explain the benefits of using Alexa for SEO to gain more Online Exposure and really provide a simple and effective way on finding high alexa ranked sites and quality sites to submit links to.

I try and get you to know as much about SEO as possible so that you can see how much work is involved and then you can decide on either having myself do SEO for you or doing it yourself:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Sep272009

SEO & Design Rap!

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Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Michael Jackson and who else? Welcome MoSerious . I think this guy is someone who could be the next ICE Cube/Larry Page, he is an SEO & Design rapper enthusiast.

This guy really knows his stuff about SEO and Design, the only problem is I don’t know what part to take him more serious. What he knows or what he shows? Enjoy: