New enhanced profile pages introduced, PayPal pays for litigation, tools for PowerSellers and the Elmo craze continues.

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It’s so hard to know whether or not this will pay for itself. We have always been exclusive to the web. We didn’t want to get into producing a catalog because our product line changes so quickly. I feel like we need to take this step because it will really increase our reach. Many of […]

It’s so hard to know whether or not this will pay for itself. We have always been exclusive to the web. We didn’t want to get into producing a catalog because our product line changes so quickly. I feel like we need to take this step because it will really increase our reach. Many of our customers are in Chapters of anywhere from 5 to 100+ women. A lot of them (women 50 and over) are not super saavy with their computers or the internet. If we start sending catalogs out with our orders, these women can share their catalog at their meetings. We have hundreds of requests. So this is our next project, I guess I have to move forward with it.

A really fabulous thing happened to us today…our gateway went down…at least that’s what I think happened. ARHHGG!!! No explanation, just a lot of screaming on our part, and it’s back up. But we missed out on all of our morning orders, which tends to be our busiest time. I know it’s water under the bridge, but it’s just so maddening! Mostly because we shouldn’t have to pull teeth with our host to get it accomplished!!

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A new Web analytics service by Mercado Software and FireClick lets you analyze data needed to create sales strategies through detailed reports.

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The newest version of WebAssist’s eCart Adobe Dreamweaver extension, announced today, lets you do more with PayPal and introduces a subscription version.

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Q: Regarding link popularity: I just queried google (i.e. link:www.xyz.com) and found some 2,000 links to my site. But, according to Google’s results, many of those links are from within my site. Is this hurting or helping me? A: It’s not hurting you. Internal links count as votes, and as such that can help […]

Q: Regarding link popularity: I just queried google (i.e. link:www.xyz.com) and found some 2,000 links to my site. But, according to Google’s results, many of those links are from within my site. Is this hurting or helping me?

A: It’s not hurting you. Internal links count as votes, and as such that can help you, but voting for yourself can only do you a limited amount of good. Linking across your entire site to particular pages (such as your Top Sellers) reinforces their importance over other pages in your site. But without good inbound links from other sites “voting” for you, your voting for yourself doesn’t mean much.Incidentally, if you want to see how many inbound links are pointing to your entire site (not just your home page) and with all internal links excluded, try the following search on Yahoo!: “linkdomain:www.xyz.com -site:www.xyz.com” (without the quotes)

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Q: Are php pages searched different? A: No, because their output is HTML, just like asp pages, Cold Fusion pages, etc.

Q: Are php pages searched different?

A: No, because their output is HTML, just like asp pages, Cold Fusion pages, etc.

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Q: How can we get products listed in Froogle? Is it similar to Google or does it have a specific method? A: You can get your products included automatically without any effort just by having a Google-friendly online catalog site. You can also submit a data feed to Froogle in XML format on a […]

Q: How can we get products listed in Froogle? Is it similar to Google or does it have a specific method?

A: You can get your products included automatically without any effort just by having a Google-friendly online catalog site. You can also submit a data feed to Froogle in XML format on a regular basis free of charge. Learn more at http://froogle.google.com/froogle/merchants.html. It’s a good idea to submit a Froogle data feed if you are eligible (your online shop must operate in the US and in US dollars to be eligible).

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Q: Could you elaborate on how a home page’s PageRank score influences the PageRank score of internal pages? A: The home page is typically the most PageRank-endowed page of a site because it’s the most linked to. Thus the home page is the holder of much PageRank. You pass on PageRank to other pages […]

Q: Could you elaborate on how a home page’s PageRank score influences the PageRank score of internal pages?

A: The home page is typically the most PageRank-endowed page of a site because it’s the most linked to. Thus the home page is the holder of much PageRank. You pass on PageRank to other pages of your site via the links contained on that home page. The links contained on that home page, and on the secondary pages that lead from the home page, is a reflection of your site hierarchy. Change your internal linking structure/hierarchy and you will change the way PageRank is conveyed to sub-pages within your site. Best practice is to think through which pages are your best opportunities and as such should be getting a bigger share of PageRank.

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Q: Regarding Link Popularity: What is your opinion about tools like Arelis that can help produce link popularity. Can these do more harm than good? A: How do you feel when you get an unsolicited reciprocal link request via email? How many of them do you respond with a “Yep, sure thing. I added […]

Q: Regarding Link Popularity: What is your opinion about tools like Arelis that can help produce link popularity. Can these do more harm than good?

A: How do you feel when you get an unsolicited reciprocal link request via email? How many of them do you respond with a “Yep, sure thing. I added a link to you.”? So why buy a tool that propagates that sort of spam? We don’t use any such tools.

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Connecticut-based couple create their own free online marketplace, afeature-rich alternative to eBay.

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Q: Do the names of image files themselves - not just the alt tags - affect rankings? A: Possibly you might get a small uplift, but the effect is negligible.

Q: Do the names of image files themselves - not just the alt tags - affect rankings?

A: Possibly you might get a small uplift, but the effect is negligible.

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Q: If we are using flash on the home page with very little content, can we include relevant content and links below the fold and will this help in search results? A: Yes, it will help to some extent. Certainly that is better than not doing so. But it may not look that great […]

Q: If we are using flash on the home page with very little content, can we include relevant content and links below the fold and will this help in search results?

A: Yes, it will help to some extent. Certainly that is better than not doing so. But it may not look that great to the user if s/he does scroll below the fold (i.e. it’s not the best user experience to repeat yourself). Better to remove content and links from Flash altogether.

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Q: I understand that Google reads the left hand side of the site, the top then the middle and that is what is displayed. Is there a particular code to have the spiders read the middle first. A: Google actually reads straight down the page - in the HTML source code. If you’re clever […]

Q: I understand that Google reads the left hand side of the site, the top then the middle and that is what is displayed. Is there a particular code to have the spiders read the middle first.

A: Google actually reads straight down the page - in the HTML source code. If you’re clever with your HTML, you can rejig the HTML code to put the middle column on top. You can see an example of how we put the second column first in the HTML above the left column of navigation at http://www.stepbystepwebmarketing.com

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