For those of you who have been fortunate enough to read and learn some SEO SECRETS from 'SEO Secrets and Tips Part 1', you will really find this Part 2 quite informative.
If you have an eBay store you may have noticed the area called 'Search Engine Keywords' under 'Manage My Store'. This is an often overlooked area of your store's customization options.
Keywords are relate to the products you carry in your store. For my wife and I it would be BALL CAPS and BOONIE HATS because this is the product that we deal in the most.
There are many ways to make the keywords work in your favor. Your store or website's url would be the first area to tackle your keywords. I know our store's name isn't a good example since we had different plans when we first opened our eBay store. Our store's name would be better if it was 'Ball Caps and Boonie Hats of Iowa' or something along those lines. The one store that I've seen that is a true example of using keywords in their store and website name would be 'Naughty and Nice Lingerie'.
The next step is to go to 'My eBay > Manage My Store > Store Categories' and set up category names with names directly related to your products. An example would be our Ball Caps category. If you view our eBay store you will find that I have been working on setting up store categories relating to our other specific products.
Moving onto the next step in optimization of your keywords and SEO Secrets. You will once again want to login into your store and go to: 'My eBay > Manage My Store > Search Engine Keywords' for this step. If you are selling a product such as Ball Caps you will want the main keywords to the Ball Caps category to be to be Ball Caps. If you have a category named Boonie Hats, you will want the keywords to be Boonie Hats. It's just that simple.
Moving right along. This area can be a little more difficult depending on your items and which keywords you are wishing to use in your items title. Items that will be listed in a given category should have in their title the same keywords you have been using in that category. The reason I say this can be difficult is because you will be trying to reach a keyword saturation of 3-5%. What that means is that in our case we will want to have the keyword saturation of Ball Caps to be some where in the 3%-5% area. Under is weak and over is viewed by search engines as possible keyword spamming. If you do a Google search for 'Keyword Saturation' you should find a number of sites offering tools to analyze your keywords once you have finished the steps listed in this Part 2. You will want to keep making changes until you have reached the level of keyword saturation that you are happy with. This process can also be used with the content of your individual auction and store listings as well.
Utilizing SEO Secrets and Tips Part 1 and Part 2 should drastically improve your store's overall performance in the search engines and in eBay's searches.
Keep in mind that these tips work far better for sellers who keep their store open all year around as this builds stability in the eyes of the search engines. It may help the seasonal stores as well if they are opened early enough to allow for the search engines to pick them up. In the case of some search engines you will need up to 6 months for them to pick up your store. Others such as Google will most likely pick up your store if opened 3 months prior to the season.
Once again, I am NOT an expert on SEO Secrets and Tips and you should take my advice as that. I am only explaining things that I have read and/or learned through countless hours of research. All suggestions listed here are subject to change when search engines change the way they search the web and eBay. Also, these suggestions are only as good as the person writing them and if you ask my wife then she might just tell you that I am full of it. 😉
If you have any suggestions or questions feel free to post them and I will get back as soon as I get time.
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BALL CAPS, BOONIE HATS, and WIND SOCKS
Anyone wishing to have their store used in SEO Secrets and Tips Part 3 please leave a reply and I will put the stores in one of my ball caps and do a fair drawing for 1 or 2 lucky stores to be in Part 3.
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BALL CAPS, BOONIE HATS, and WIND SOCKS
D,
Consider yourself added to the ball cap. ;-)
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BALL CAPS, BOONIE HATS, and WIND SOCKS
I would love to as well, but I am just now catching up due to illness and surgery so if it's too late or I am not eligible at this time, it's okay.
~Tammie~
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I've enjoyed reading and learning what you have shared. I would love to have my Store in the ball cap, Rug Haven. And, I am also volunteering to do the drawing as well. Ha. Thanks for sharing. I appreciate it!
Sincerely,
Susan:)
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Heirloom Quality Braided Rugs
Please Visit Our Store
Please Visit Our Store
What tool or web site do use to check your Keyword Saturation. I too would like to be entered into the drawing.
Thanks for the info. Trent!!!!
Steve
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NGC Silver Eagles, NGC Coins, Coin Supplies
Thanks to everyone for the comments!
Tammie, it's not too late for the drawing.
Debbie, it's a drawing to be in the SEO Secrets and Tips Part 3
Steve, if you do a Google search for Keyword Saturation you will find countless tools that will identify what the percentages are of your words on your pages. You will just have to enter the exact url of that page for an analysis to be given.
To everyone,
I just received a call with a RUSH load to California and I will most likely not be providing any correspondence for the next 3-5 days. I will answer any questions as soon as I get a little extra time which there will not be much of.
Gotta Go! Have a GREAT week EVERYONE!
Mr. tjwindart (Trent)
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BALL CAPS, BOONIE HATS, and WIND SOCKS
I just opened my store and do not have any keywords in it, nor do I know what you mean. I need to learn so much!! You can add me to the ball cap, but I do not have any words in mine...until I figure out how and what to put there.
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Hey Trent...3-5 days is perfect for me. That will get me through the weekend and maybe...if I am lucky...I will have figured out how to get the alt tag and href working with my logo. Gotta have those key words! :-)
D
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Well I made it to my shut down point much quicker than I had planned so I am going to try and answer a couple of questions here. I figured the Wyoming snow storms would cause me much more trouble but I managed to slide through before things got too bad and they do get ugly on these Wyoming mountains.
I am going to try to get everyone's questions answered in this one response so please look for your name to find my response.
Steve,
Sorry for not having more time earlier but I am glad I ran out the door as quickly as I did because the sun was setting on the mountains while I was passing over them and night fall is when the roads start to freeze and everyone that thought they were in a hurry unfortunately ends up upside down and they find themselves to no longer be such a hurry.
One KEYWORD SATURATION tool that I use is found at webuildpages.com. This is just one of the many sites with great tools to ANALYZE your web pages or store pages. They have a couple of useful tools there. Go play around with the tools and see what happens. Have fun learning. 😉 Hope this better answers your question.
Lisa,
Please keep in mind that the following are only my suggestions and they are to be taken with a grain of salt. If others care to interact and suggest different categories or keywords please do.
I noticed that you only have a couple of very generalized categories. Feel free to keep them for generalized searches but I would also add one such as 'Dr. Seuss' and maybe 'Fisher Price' if these are items you plan to sell on a regular basis. You may want to add one or two other categories for your other products.
The above listed are keywords that you might want to concentrate on using. eBay allows you to list your listings in two categories and it is to your advantage to do so. For your Dr. Seuss books you might want them in your newly created 'Dr. Seuss' category and also in your 'Books' category.
Now for an explanation of keywords. A keyword is the word or combination of words that a buyer might enter into the eBay or Google search to find your products. One of our main keywords is BALL CAPS. Notice how I used this opportunity to make it a clickable link. In doing so, I have provided our store with another keyword link. Your keyword might be Books, or Toys or whatever you might want to concentrate your sales on. So, if you follow my instructions in SEO Secrets and Tips Part 2 on how to get into the Search Engine Keywords then you will be able to make the necessary changes to your categories. I know how confusing this all can be so I hope I have confused you more. But, if I did, don't be afraid to speak up. I will try really hard to help you.
First Variety,
Thank you for adding to this. We are grateful for any and all suggestions.
The most important thing to keep in mind when using directories is to try and list your site in a directory category that best matches your products or services. This should help your page rank. It is said that listing in categories that do not match up to your products and/or services can actually hurt your page rank.
Some directories also require that you put a return link from your page to their page and if you do not their link checker program will remove your link. These links can be in violation of some of eBay's policies. Depending on which one you are reading and how eBay themselves interpret their policy.
Something I might spend my time doing to get back links to my store or pages, is to look for guestbooks to sign with a link back added to it of course. Or, another great way is to find a good blog and interact with the blog and set up a signature that creates a link back to your page every time you make a comment. Just like many of us do here.
Once again, thank you for your input and feel free to add any other suggestions you might have.
D,
I am so sorry to mess up your plans of having all that extra time to figure out all of this nonsense. ;-)
I was actually suppose to be taking a load to Lawton, OK until a customer called with this rush delivery.
You and Steve both had questions about the alt tag and I had problems trying to get things to show up the way I wanted them to because of the coding that the groups uses. I am going to give it my best shot.
Your html code might look something like this:
<a href="http://stores.ebay.com/Ds-Books-N-More?refid=store" Title="Ds Books N More">Ds Books, Jewelry, and Toys<br><http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg215/millers3x3/MyBuns2-1.jpg" alt="Ds Books, Jewelry, and Toys"</a>
At the time of my preview the above html showed as html. If it doesn't show up right during the post process I will correct it in another response.
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BALL CAPS, BOONIE HATS, and WIND SOCKS
