“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.

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

(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

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?!!

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

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

Jonathan Levitt
VP Marketing, iPerceptions
(powering 4Q on thousand of websites).

Any add’l suggestions on how to rank these killer ideas?

Thanks again,

David J.
1-12-09

John