Rob Snell Went to Vegas and Gave Us His PubCon Slides
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by Rob Snell
Friday, January 9th, 2009
Today’s Y! Store blog is another guest column by long-time Yahoo! Store owner and marketer Rob Snell of Snell Brothers, located in Starkville, Mississippi. Rob is a retailer who blogs about Yahoo! Store, speaks at search conferences about Yahoo! Store, and is the author of the almost three year-old book on Yahoo! Store: Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies that is still somewhat current. Rob is recovering from the frenzy of the Festivus shopping season in an undisclosed location somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.
"My marketing consultant went to Las Vegas, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."
Howdy! I would say I’m just back from Vegas, but PubCon was last year! PubCon in Las Vegas is the show of the year for me. I dare say it’s the best Internet marketing conference because of who speaks, what they say, how much they give away, and who attends. I love to "network" with some of the smartest retailers and Internet marketers on the planet, and being a speaker gets me on the guest list for some of the really cool parties, too!
As promised, here is my full presentation with 77 PowerPoint slides. This year we have audio, and I hope you enjoy my new theme song, too!
If you’d rather read it than listen to it, take a gander at an expanded transcription of my PubCon PowerPoint slides with additional info.
Here are some highlights:
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Skip to Slide 6 for Tip #1. You might want to skip three minutes on my marketing background and life story.
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One change in our company philosophy increased our conversion rate almost instantly by 20%. What did we do? We told folks what to buy.
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Buyer’s Guides work! With buyer’s guides we have had a 50% increase in conversions when buyer’s guide pages were used as entry pages. When folks would come into our site from a search engine organically, if they come in on the buyer’s guide page, they are 50% more likely to convert. For example, here’s our dog training collars buyer’s guide.
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Write unique product descriptions. It is good for your customers to show that you are an expert and you know what you are doing, and The Google loves unique product descriptions.
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Write one new paragraph for every $10 in item price. Now I just made that up. Write what makes sense to you, but that is a good rule of thumb for creating content. You say, "Gosh. That is a $600 product. You mean I have to write 60 paragraphs about the dang Garmin Astro?" Yep.
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Play 20 questions with every single product. Start at the top with your best selling products and work your way down. Ask yourself what customers have in their mind when they are looking to buy something. Customers want to know if this product is going to work for them. I literally have over 200 questions that I can ask about any product.
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Capture killer content in any which way you can. Like I said, I lock my brother up in a room and pull it out of him. Record everything. Audio. Video. Still pictures. I mean, everything. When I don’t want to carry a professional digital camera, I have a little FLIP (video) camera over here I carry everywhere I go. I can get my brother to jabber on about some product about why this manufacturer should do this, blah, blah, blah and I have great info for the Yahoo! Store.
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Blog to build content and attract links. I do a much better job of this as an e-commerce consultant and a speaker than I do with the dog stuff or our other stores. We take email questions that my brother has answered, his content, and we stick it on the Web. I got over 1,000 pages in a Word document from a year’s worth of Steve’s sent emails.
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Make your suppliers link to you. I finally have everybody in the company used to the fact that when we buy something from somebody, they are going to link to us. Or else! Linking to us is almost a condition for doing business with us.
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Romance your suppliers for additional links and free content. Example: Steve took a supplier out bird hunting on one of his fancy Texas quail leases. He gets to be good buddies with folks he needs to have a good relationship with and we ended up getting a link out of it, which is really nice.
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Add keyword modifiers to page text. I have over 600 modifiers that I have identified that generate revenue for different businesses, and I use those where they make sense in the text on the Web page. Ask me later. I’ve got some good secrets that I can’t share over the microphone on how to do.
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Survey your customers. One of the best things we ever did was install 4Q, the free customer survey software, on our website. What 4Q does is it asks your customers four questions. "What are you here to do? Did you accomplish it? How satisfied were you with the website, and why?"
Why I heart PubCon the way I do
PubCon is always hard on my ever-present notebook. I always fill up that little black book with takeaways or ideas generated from presentations. Speakers at PubCon tend to give away real-world, actionable advice. I know it’s going to be a good show when there are multiple sessions where I can’t make up my mind which class to attend. PubCon is the opposite of the worst kind of conferences or trade shows where the sessions are bought and paid for, and the speakers pitch you all day for their company’s products and services. Personally, I’d rather sit at home and watch Vince of ShamWow infomercial fame.
I get to speak at PubCon, too! For me, it’s a chance to give back a little to the search marketing community that I’ve learned so much from over the past 12 years. The high caliber of the other speakers makes the pressure to perform really intense. My friends make fun of me for over-thinking my speech. Instead of partying and going to all the sessions, I always seem to get stuck in my room tweaking my slides the day before my session.
And I tend to spill my guts, too. Sometimes I give away too much! I figure people spend a lot of money going to conferences, and I want to make sure they get their money’s worth for the whole show from my 20 minutes in the spotlight. One thing I always tell myself is that no matter what I give away, at least the good stuff is available only to the folks who spent a couple thousand bucks or so and showed up for my panel. They may archive my PowerPoint, but all the really good stuff is hidden in the stories between the slides.
Well, not anymore…
Keep capturing killer content!
I get somewhat obsessive about getting my retailers to capture content, and this blog post is a pretty good example of what I recommend fellow retailers do all the time. You have so much product info in your retail brain. Get it out! How? When you’re talking about stuff your customers are interested in, you need to record it, whether video or audio, and then get someone to transcribe it. Edit the transcription and insert relevant links. Finally, insert that keyword rich text in your Yahoo! Store where it makes sense, like in the CAPTION fields of relevant products. If it makes sense, edit some video footage together to make a little demo for your Yahoo! Store.
In the spirit of taking my own advice, this year I taped my session at PubCon mainly so I could see what I really ended up saying. I’ve got a pretty good idea what I’m going to talk about, but I always throw stuff in I didn’t plan on sharing! Doh! I ripped the audio, sent it to a guy who transcribes stuff for me and 3 hours later I had a 10 page Word document. Did I really say all that?
Wrapping things up, I hope you enjoyed the info, and your feedback is always appreciated, so please post comments or drop me a line. Before I put all this together, I got the blessing of PubCon owner and WebmasterWorld founder, Brett Tabke, so this post is authorized and official and all that. I don’t get paid to say this, but if you want to make more money, I suggest you attend the next show, PubCon South in Austin, TX, March 11-13, 2009. Your competitors will be there…
Rob Snell
Guest blogger for Yahoo! Small Business
Comments
Eric,
If you haven’t already found them, make sure to check out Rob Snell’s previous posts to the blog for more of his great advice:
Pimping Your Product Page
How to Get Vendor Links
SES NYC 2007
Southern Fried SEO
Free Conversion Rate Chapter
Converting Keywords
Comment by jfarwell — January 9, 2009 @ 10:56 pm
Good stuff! Some of it I had heard already, some was new. Although I was a bit offended at the “real retailer” comment you made about drop shippers. 
Not really though. My wife and I have full time jobs and run a store on the side. Neither of us have a retail background, but decided to start our own business to “test the waters”. Maybe someday we will go full time. We’ve been open since November of ‘06. We had your book even before we opened the store. Still have a ways to go to implement most of it, but it’s been fun so far. We have been surveying customers on the checkout page using Yahoo’s custom forms in Checkout Manager for some time. Very helpful, but will definitely check out Q4!
Thanks Rob!
Comment by Andrew — January 9, 2009 @ 11:22 pm
Rob,
Nice job. I am looking forward to the PDF you will send as well.
Thanks.
Comment by sinus infection remedy — January 9, 2009 @ 11:28 pm
Thanks, Eric. Remember, your mileage may vary, but it’s easier to follow someone else’s trail before cutting through the jungle yourself.
And not that you asked, but get some keyword rich content on that domain and start link building now and it’ll increase your vector when your store DOES launch.
Rob,
Great info! You really take the mystery out of using the search engines for store traffic. Most of what you said in the slide presentation seems like it would apply to any store(not just Y!Stores)
I won’t be selling physical products – just programs and templates – is setting up a Y!Store overkill in your opinion for less than, say 20 products? Thanks for the solid info.
this is awesome!
thank you for breaking this down for the newbies too!
i wish that the yahoo merchant account were able to offer free shipping on SPECIFIC PRODUCTS using the coupon code.. they told me they can not currently.
any tips?
Comment by dave — January 10, 2009 @ 12:35 am
Hi Rob,
The buyers guide suggestion is the one I am trying implement. Do you feel it should be on the section page for the particular group of products, say in the caption field. Or is a separate page within a section better? I know, just get it done…
Thank you
Rob
Great stuff! Looking forward to the PDF. Cant wait to read it thanks!
You did it again!! Your tips save me hours of research and testing of what works and what doesn’t. I especially liked tip #4.
P.S. you misspelled the word “Transaction” I think it was tip #13
Comment by Robert Real — January 10, 2009 @ 2:14 am
Rob, As a one “wo”man operation, I need all the help I can get. Your advice is invaluable. I will be working on converting keywords ASAP and look forward to implementing your other suggestions soon. I launched about 6 months ago and your book has kept me going at times that I thought I should throw in the towel. Thank You!!
Really great information and not just in terms of SEO, just great business advice in general. I strongly suggest everyone take the time to listen and go through the slides.
Excellent content here and a nice writing style too – keep up the great work!
Comment by Find Niches Online — January 10, 2009 @ 2:55 am
Hi Rob – Great presentation. My number one take-away is to take a look at Yahoo Analytics and consider using it instead of Google Analytics. One suggestion for future content – more focus on suggestions for retail sites that are very unique, i.e. not necessarily competing with a lot of other people selling the same product, but have a very niche product looking to increase marketing using online tools. Thanks. Joe
Rob, Thanks for this cool resource. Looking forward to the complimentary PDF as well. Good stuff!
Comment by abhilash — January 10, 2009 @ 8:49 am
Another great one by Rob – He has been a guide for us since I launched my first Yahoo Store. I came across his book on Amazon, bought it, had questions, called him – he answered, and gave me more good info in 5 minutes than everyone else put together in the previous year. Now we have 4 sites.
Comment by dave huckabay — January 10, 2009 @ 1:11 pm
Hi Rob;
As you may remember we/I am an Industrial Designer – Inventor whose first very small product line of unique rolling case desks you helped us get off the ground selling on our Yahoo Store site (almost 5 years ago).
You did some really simple but effective things for us that continue to be thankful for everyday.
Our question is – since we are unique in that we sell our own designs that no one has heard of before do your recommendations fit us as well as selling the already well known?
We wish there exsisted – and the world of inventor-designers out there really need – someone that speaks to selling the totally new.
Do you still consult for the tiny stores like us?
Our best in 2009
Jon Ryburg
Comment by Jon Ryburg — January 10, 2009 @ 2:09 pm
Rob Snell is like going to a great museum. There is so much great material(pearls of wisdom) that he puts forth that overwhelms your brain. Keep it up.. 2009 is going to be a great year for ecommerce!
elliott
Rob,
These tips are very thought provoking. For those of us entering e comm from the old world mail order there are a dizzying array of choices. More on why y-store is a better choice than alternatives would also be helpful. I am looking forward to reading more of your suggestions and insights. Best of luck for 2009.
Rob,
Another great post. Just curious about the keyword modifiers that you mention in the transcript/presentation. How about sharing some more of them?
Thanks for the great info.
Michael
Rob,
I have implemented a lot of your tips. Sometimes I feel, even after having read the book, like I have jumped in mid-stream. Some of the concepts are foreign to me, but I just keep plugging away, learning as I go.
I appreciate the information.
Thanks for the great info Rob.
Comment by Raphael@Top Web Templates — January 11, 2009 @ 1:19 am
Rob,
Thanks so much for this.. This info is very appreciated… Always provides clear and actionable steps… Thanks again,
Mark
Comment by Mark — January 11, 2009 @ 1:21 am
Every time I read your information I get something new to think about – your info is really great. The product guide idea is really a good one.
I was a little annoyed about the real retailer comment- as I drop ship about two thirds of my products – unlike you, I did not have an established family business to start out and fine jewelry is really expensive to inventory.
Hey there Rob…
Just would like to say once again
“Thank You”!! And When I post a review of your book on Amazon I will send you a link…
It took a while for the book to sink in and for me to realize just how valuable of a “tool” that baby is…
Gus
Hi Rob – good stuff. What is a keyword modifier?
Thanks
Ian
Comment by Ian Hartten — January 12, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
Rob, has such tremendous advice for all of us, product guide pages and making my item pages stand out from the rest are the first things I am going to work on. Thanks Rob and when you get a chance visit my store, I would love your feedback!!!
John
Comment by johnnylew.com — January 12, 2009 @ 3:52 pm
Great presentation and info Robb. Very insightful for any site platforms, especially for us in the Yahoo store family. So many good suggestions/ideas, we need to try to organize and prioritize them.
Any add’l suggestions on how to rank these killer ideas?
Thanks again,
David J.
1-12-09
Comment by David J — January 12, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
Rob,
Great post. Thanks for the 4Q mention. Much appreciated!
Jonathan Levitt
VP Marketing, iPerceptions
(powering 4Q on thousand of websites).
Comment by Jonathan Levitt — January 12, 2009 @ 10:18 pm
I had read the transcript already, but it helped to hear the audio and the slides. Nice job!
Comment by Rick — January 13, 2009 @ 12:25 am
Thanks for the comments, Elliott, Angie, Melodi, Find Niches Online, Joe, Gus, Raphael, Abhilash, Dave H., Jonathan, Mark, and Joe. I’ll hit the questions after an apology and a clarification.
I was a little annoyed about the real retailer comment- as I drop ship about two thirds of my products – unlike you, I did not have an established family business to start out and fine jewelry is really expensive to inventory. — Tom
Doh! My apologies. See, I never know what I’m going to say at these things until I say it. Upon reflection, I realize I was insulting hundreds and thousands REAL retailers who drop ship. Sorry, all!
When you let someone else handle the shipping, it lowers your up front costs, and allows you to get your little toe into new markets. Downside for me is lack of control for inventory and customer service issues AND whoever is bearing those costs are also going to charge you a premium for that service.
And if you compete against someone who ships themselves, you probably have slimmer margins which means you have to convert more shoppers than the competition does just to break even, and over time that 5-10% difference can kill you. That’s what I SHOULD have said! More in a sec… — r
For those of us entering e comm from the old world mail order there are a dizzying array of choices. More on why y-store is a better choice than alternatives would also be helpful. — John
Thanks! OK. Without launching into a 15 minute speech, Yahoo! Store is perfect for most folks as an e-commerce solution. I have clients & friends doing anywhere from $25 million a year on down, and at $40 a month to start, how easy can it get? Since this is Yahoo!’s blog and I’m a guest here, so I’m not going to go through a list of their competitors with my wish list of features I think Y! should add next. Folks who know me know I have strong opinions, and I speak my mind, sometimes to my detriment. I think Yahoo! Store is far and away the best online store builder AND shopping-cart platform. How’s that? 
“I won’t be selling physical products – just programs and templates – is setting up a Y!Store overkill in your opinion for less than, say 20 products?”
Nope. I’ve set up Yahoo! Stores for single products that have done really well. See above answer!
i wish that the yahoo merchant account were able to offer free shipping on SPECIFIC PRODUCTS using the coupon code.. they told me they can not currently. any tips? – dave
Howdy, Dave. Hmmm. Not sure about coupon code for free shipping. I thought you could do that, but coupon codes are conversion-killers for me. Think about what happens when folks who DON’T have a coupon hit your checkout and see “ENTER COUPON CODE HERE.” They drop your cart and look for a coupon code.
I like to use the SHIP-WEIGHT workaround on products that are less than my FREE SHIPPING threshold that I want to have free shipping. I set a shipping rule that overrides all other rules when shipping is greater than 5555 or something like that. — r
Do you feel (buyers guide) should be on the section page for the particular group of products, say in the caption field. Or is a separate page within a section better? — Rick
Me? Personally, I like to make a separate “section” page, sometimes with multiple “chapters” for deep, deep buyers guides. I do a TON of cross-linking inside the CAPTION fields. When you talk about a product, link to the product page for a more user-friendly guide.
P.S. you misspelled the word “Transaction” I think it was tip #13 — Robert
Thanks! Man, I need an editor. I was typing so fast to get this thing together and it was 4:30am as I was wrapping up. Kelly, my copy editor on the DUMMIES book had her hands full! Maybe I need to have a contest where I’ll give anyone who spots a typo in my book a link or something?!!
(i’m interested in) suggestions for retail sites that are very unique, i.e. not necessarily competing with a lot of other people selling the same product, but have a very niche product looking to increase marketing using online tools. Thanks. Joe
and
we are unique in that we sell our own designs that no one has heard of before do your recommendations fit us as well as selling the already well known? … Someone that speaks to selling the totally new. Do you still consult for the tiny stores like us?
– Jon
Very similar answers to two questions. Yes, these concepts apply to niche stores and folks inventing a better mousetrap. In a nutshell, find out what folks looking to buy what you sell actually call what you sell. For example, say you call your gadget a “Radio Translocator System,” but ordinary folks call it a “dog tracker,” you’ll never get traffic or sales from ordinary folk.
TIP: The Google Keyword tool (free) is a great way to plug in both keywords and Web sites to explore keyword ideas. See https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
And I still do SOME consulting, but these days I seem to refer most folks to my RTML design peeps or marketing buddies for most things. — r
I have implemented a lot of your tips. Sometimes I feel, even after having read the book, like I have jumped in mid-stream. Some of the concepts are foreign to me, but I just keep plugging away, learning as I go.
Karla T
Thanks, Karla. Honestly, the most important stuff is the easiest. Turn on Yahoo! Web Analytics. Collect converting keywords. Write unique product descriptions. Call products what ordinary folks call products. Get links. Make sure your products have your best converting keywords for that product in the NAME field of your products. Take great care of your customers.
…… Sometimes I ramble on like RAINMAIN when I talk about this stuff. I think the best thing is to always come back and revisit ideas 3, 6, 9 months later and sometimes you see what I was babbling about, but more often that not you’ll be working on that above list for the next 5 years!
… So many good suggestions/ideas, we need to try to organize and prioritize them. Any add’l suggestions on how to rank these killer ideas? — David J.
For example, let’s budget 100 hours for pimping your content inside your Yahoo! Store. Whether that’s the next 2 weeks doing nothing but content OR 2 hours a week for the rest of 2009, I recommend that you allocate your time where your money is: Start with your best-sellers and work down the list. If 10% of your sales come from one single product, spend 10 hours crafting the best written description, pimp out your additional photos, write a killer sales letter, and make that product page rock. Rinse and repeat.
Hi Rob – good stuff. What is a keyword modifier? Thanks. Ian
AND
Just curious about the keyword modifiers that you mention in the transcript/presentation. How about sharing some more of them? Michael
When I say keyword “modifiers” I mean non-product words within in a search query that change the meaning of the search when added to the normal product-based keywords.
For example, here’s an example query:
“cheap orange DOG COLLARS for sale in Jasper AL with free shipping.”
That example query includes a price sensitive modifier (cheap), a color/style modifier (orange), a buying modifier (for sale), a geo-location modifier (Jasper AL), and a promo/offer modifier (free shipping). Now if those words don’t exist in the NAME or CAPTION of your Yahoo! Store, the odds of you ranking for them is practically nil. Most of the ones I’ve collected have come from me buying BROAD MATCH PPC ads for (in this example) “dog collar” and over time picking up:
cheap DOG COLLARS,
orange DOG COLLARS,
DOG COLLARS for sale,
DOG COLLARS in Jasper AL,
and DOG COLLARS with free shipping. — r
OK. I swore I’d never share my transcription guy I refer to in the PUBCON slides, but too many people are asking. Today we got the info on a major new product release. Steve called me on his way back from duck hunting with the down low on this new stuff for 30 minutes. I recorded it. Uploaded it to my Yahoo! Store FILES / LIB folder. Emailed my dude. 3 hours later I have 5800 words in my in box. He’s too good NOT to share. I can’t keep him busy! — r
“I now have a website now for transcription work. It is http://www.transcribenow.net so if you know of anyone that needs work done, please pass along my website.
Done.
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Although our store hasn’t launched yet, I am certain that reading everything I can get my hands on by Snell will only help matters to be far greater success than without his incredible insight and advice. Nothing like starting off with our best foot forward, thanks Rob!
Comment by Eric — January 9, 2009 @ 10:49 pm