Some of my Favorite Websites & Online Tools

I get asked all the time about what my favorite sites are or what online tools I use for different reasons.

Search Engine Information
These are my favorite sites that I check constantly for updated information regarding search engines and SEO.

http://searchengineland.com
This is one of the best websites to track if you're interested in how search engines work and/or any updates to algorithms or the industry landscape. There is a ton of information here about SEO, Paid Search, and more. Definitely worth checking out.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
Matt Cutts is an SEO expert and Google Employee. His blog is constantly updated with SEO tips, updates, changes and other Google information. If you're interested in SEO, look at some of his posts and read the comments. Sometimes he might write about complicated topics but there are also great posts about straightforward ways to optimize your website and it's great if you want to stay up-to-date on what is going on with Google.

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/
Most people spend $100's on tutorials and lessons about Google Adwords. There is NO reason to! Google has some of the best AdWords tutorials I have ever seen and they even have quizzes available to test your knowledge! Don't waste time and money about how to "beat the system". Adwords is fundamental and all of the information you really need to know is here.

Brad Callen Software
I've used all of Brad Callen's software in the past and it's FANTASTIC and not expensive for what you get. Check these out:

SEO Elite
SEO Elite is awesome. First of all, if you sign up for his newsletter, he will send you a series of SEO lessons that are great. The software is really cool too. It will show you where your competition has holes in their SEO strategy and along with his tutorials, you can see what to optimize on your website to rank in organic Google results.

Keyword Elite
Having trouble finding keywords for your website? Keyword Elite will help you build a giant list of keywords that you can use in your Adwords campaigns or for Long Tail SEO.

Research Tools
After learning all about search engines and SEO, here are the tools you can use to progress your strategy.

GTrends
One of my favorite keyword research tools is WordTracker. They came out with a tool called GTrends which estimates the searches per day for a given keyword and compares it to a known top result. This can not only generate a keyword list for you but let you know what keywords to go after in your SEO efforts.

HammerTap
Back to eBay research for a minute. Sell Center has been using HammerTap for a long time now and it's great. Their tool is great for finding trends in sales and figuring out what products to sell. It's definitely worth checking out to improve your eBay sales figures.

Social Media Marketing (Social Bookmarking)
There has been a lot of buzz about SMM or Social Bookmarking lately. If you want to make it easy to post your Blog articles to various SMM sites, the best tool is Social Marker.

Blogs
If you need a blog, there are a few ways to go. One is sign up for a hosted solution, like Blogger.
Blogger is very cool (that's why I use it) because it has a ton of design options and you don't need to worry about hosting. It's also good to get links from a source that isn't on your domain.

Otherwise, one of the best fully customizable Blog programs is Wordpress. Wordpress blogs are great and there are tons of add-on utilities you can implement as well. To use Wordpress, you should know a decent amount of HTML to customize it.

That's about it for now. I hope that these links and tools help you learn, research and market your products and website better. If you have any experience with these tools or want to post your favorites, feel free to comment! Thanks!

Using 3rd Party Insurance to Create an online Differentiator

I think that one of the most intriguing developments in the Shopping Comparison Site world is the overwhelming increase in competition. Feeds got more robust, and easier to use as well as the barriers to starting an e-commerce website virtually disappeared and these sites are flooded with products and small business.

Well, competitor is expected, and as a smaller seller, it's your job to overcome these obstacles. I have some differentiation techniques in my Shopzilla Feed Optimization post, from a while back.

Another idea, is to use 3rd party insurance to insure all of your shipments. It's much cheaper to use a company like U-PIC to insure all of your shipments, rather then using UPS or USPS insurance. You can build the cost of the insurance (which is rather low) into the shipping charge on your website (and shopping comparison sites) or eBay but advertise "free shipping insurance!". It can be a very useful differentiator that can drive clicks to your products over the tons of competition out there.

So check out U-PIC insurance. We have used them at Sell Center for years and they have been extremely pleasant to deal with as well as reasonably priced. Their customer service is stunning and we recommend them to anyone shipping items that might require insurance such as electronics, antiques, collectibles, etc...

Thanks for stopping by!

Improving your eBay business with Multi-Venue Management

If you have an eBay business or are looking into starting an eBay business, there are many strategies to consider. This post is mainly about the debut of http://www.multivenuemanagement.com.

One of the most important decisions in regards to your business, is what software you choose. There are many choices out there and they all work for different types of business models. Remember to consider the initial cost and the future cost.

For instance, if the cost is 2% of sales OR $1000/month, remember that as your business grows, the percentage can be very high. Is there a listing fee? If you're doing thousands of listings with a smaller sell through rate, then a per listing fee may not be optimal for you. Remember to add up all of your fees over a year, keeping in mind how much your costs will rise as your business grows.

Also, one of the most important considerations is if the software company you choose has the support staff and online help that will assist you properly.

Ok, so back to Multi-Venue Management.

There is a new website out (from Sell Center) that has an eBay Business Analysis Quiz. It's not really a quiz... there is no grade but it will ask some questions about your eBay business.

After the quiz analyzes your answers, you get some great answers that can steer you in the right direction. We're not constantly selling Laris either, every link is to a list of multiple software opportunities.

Check out the site : http://www.multivenuemanagement.com

Also, after the quiz, there is an eBook for sale. It's a 45 page eBook about various multi-venue management strategies. Take a look.

Thanks for checking out the blog. I know this post wasn't about Shopping Comparison Sites directly; however, properly managing comparison site feeds is a huge part of multi-venue management. See how well you're using MVM and check out the site.

http://www.multivenuemanagement.com