Shop.org Blog

Congratulations to Monical Corcoran from the Los Angeles Times who should win a prize for the most creative story about online retail this year or perhaps this decade.  Ms. Corcoran’s Shopping while drinking: retail happy hour profiles the impact of drinking while shopping online, or, as the article refers to it as BUI - buying under the influence.  Maybe you saw this article in the Friday, April 25 Shop.org SmartBrief.

“These boxes show up, and I am, like, ‘Oh, my God. I did it again,’” says one of the afflicted in the article.  There’s even a book published in the UK called Shopping While Drunk: Confessions From Modern Life. Too funny!

I see a Shop.org opportunity here.  A partnership with the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and/or the Beer Institute might be just what our industry needs to remain resilient in the face of the sluggish economy.

I can be found tonight juggling a beer and my laptop while I watch the Penguins take on the Rangers in the first game of Round 2 of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs and shop for surfing equipment between periods and during commercials.  Go Pens!

My name is Rebecca Kelley, and I am a consultant and the site manager for SEOmoz.org. A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking on the “Customer-Centric Search Marketing” Session at the Shop.org Online Marketing Workshop held in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. I spoke alongside Allan Rimm-Kaufman, Ken Jurina, and Todd Friesen, and our goal was to give the audience some valuable tips on how to provide a positive customer experience through paid and organic search, proper keyword research, and savvy reputation management.

My presentation specifically dealt with some on-page recommendations. First of all, I echoed Ken Jurina’s sentiments that proper keyword research and implementation of those keywords on your site’s pages are essential. It’s important that your site deliver what users are searching for. Think, for instance, of the term “trainers.” In the UK that could mean “shoes,” while here in the US it could mean a personal trainer or a piece of exercise equipment. “Cross trainers,” on the other hand, is a shoe, so if you were selling cross trainers on your site in the US, you’d probably want to target the term “cross trainers” vs. just “trainers,” seeing as how the latter term is more broad and can bring the wrong kind of traffic to your site.

Secondly, I highlighted URL structure. Incorporate your keywords in your URLs–a cross trainers product page’s URL would be something like bestathleticgear.com/shoes/cross-trainers. Notice that the same URL limits the amount of subdirectories–a general rule is to try and use as few subdirectories as necessary. The further your content is from the home page, the less important it can be perceived to be (e.g., bestathleticgear.com/products/shoes/adult/mens/cross-trainers/product12345.htm).

A good rule for URLs is SASS: Short And Shareable, Stupid. Can your users share them easily, or are your URLs so long and unattractive that they take up multiple lines when you paste them into an email? Also, if a user looks at one of your URLs, can he or she figure out what sort of information will be on that page? Compare bestathleticgear.com/shoes/cross-trainers with bestathleticgear.com/cat42/prod12345. With the first URL, it’s pretty easy to guess that the page has something to do with cross trainers; the second URL, however, is more difficult to identify. Read this post at SEOmoz for more URL best practices.

Another on-site consideration is to implement a user-friendly navigation system. For your navigation, stick to conventions that users are used to, and use keywords that your customers are familiar with–stay away from complicated jargon if it’s something only your staff understands. Remember that your website is for your users, not for you. Also, incorporate a breadcrumb navigation system so that shoppers don’t get lost in your site. Breadcrumbs provide a simple, visual path that users can easily refer to, and it’s better than hitting the “Back” button.

Lastly, consider internal linking on your site. If you have a product page, link to some related products that you offer. Or, if you happen to mention a different product on a particular product’s page, link back to it (for example, your cross trainers page can link back to the shoe brand’s landing page, or it can link to related products such as athletic socks or shoe inserts). The benefit of internal linking is that it allows search engine crawlers to quickly access and crawl your site’s pages. Amazon is a great example of a site that does a lot of internal linking, and look at how many pages they have indexed! Internal linking can also boost page rank–if you have a page with a high PR, consider linking from that page to another product page that you want to rank well in the search engines. The stronger page can give the weaker page a bit of a page rank boost.

To sum up my presentation, here are key takeaways that will hopefully help improve both your customer’s experience on your site as well as your search engine rankings:

• Utilize keywords people are searching for
• Have both SEO and user-friendly URLs
• Make sure your navigation is intuitive
• Link to related products or information for better crawling and conversions

I hope that my presentation provided some value for the Shop.org conference attendees. For any questions or comments about my presentation or my blog post, feel free to comment below or contact me.

Fellow Shop.org retailers and associate members, 

I am writing because it has just come to my attention that there is some confusion surrounding my Paying for Performance conference call. Let me clarify the situation by stating several facts: 

1)      Neither Vintage Tub nor I get any direct or indirect compensation for this call. I do freely admit, however, that I get a lot of personal pleasure providing useful content to the community that has been so supportive of our business. 

2)      I asked Jeff Molander – a very knowledgeable person – to help me develop the content for the calls. I told him that although only retailers would be able to listen in on the call, I would allow anyone with relevant and actionable insight to present on the call. Of course, we do not allow anyone to pitch their products or services. 

3)      Vintage Tub does not charge anyone to speak or participate on the call. Jeff and I bear all the costs. 

I sincerely apologize if Jeff or I offended anyone by posting a detailed speaker list for our next call. The post was simply designed to let our members know who the call speakers are and what they have to offer. We will no longer post this kind of information on the Shop.org blog. If you are interested in participating on this call, you can write me privately and I will send you the details. 

My goal – whether it is organizing panels for Shop.org conferences, hosting networking dinners at Shop.org events or sponsoring conference calls for Shop.org members – is to get fellow ecommerce managers talking and sharing information with each other. Nothing more – nothing less. 

Sincerely, 

Allan Dick, Jr. 

CMO 

Vintage Tub and Bath 

Are you a new member to Shop.org? Join us March 6 at 2:00PM eastern time for a member orientation call featuring two retailers, Anne Ashbey from Harry and David, and Mike Bibbey with Mrs. Prindable’s Handmade Confections, to learn the secrets of some of the industry’s most successful retail marketers.  You will have a chance to ask any questions you may have about Shop.org membership, upcoming events, and plans for the future.

Please contact Nicole Edmund at edmundn@shop.org for call-in details. 

A great friend of Shop.org Alan Rimm-Kaufman just completed an interview with author and keynote speaker at the just completed Strategy and Innovation Forum Andy Sernovitz.

Check it out — interesting stuff:

http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2008/02/20/andy-sernovitz/