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Marketing & Advertising

The marketing of an ecommerce business is paramount to its success. Our coverage includes insights on email marketing, content marketing, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest — affiliate marketing, video advertising, and much more.

Content Marketing | Email Marketing | Google Ads | Influencer Marketing | Social Media
  • Marketing & Advertising

    Coordinate Pay-per-click Advertising With SEO Efforts

    September 19, 2008 •

    The goal of a pay-per-click advertising campaign is to attract qualified traffic to a website in an effort to have searchers convert on a desired action. That action could be a sale, filling out a lead form, requesting information and so forth. The goal of search engine optimization i...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Starwest-botanicals.com

    September 8, 2008 •

    Starwest Botanicals’ home page begins with this statement: “Starwest Botanicals is your on-line supply source for bulk herbs and natural products. Bulk organic herbs, organic spices, loose leaf organic teas, organic essential oils and aromatherapy supplies are part of the almost 3000 na...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Cleverbridge VP On Selling Digital Products

    September 5, 2008 •

    Craig Vodnik is vice president, North America, for Cleverbridge, an ecommerce platform that helps online merchants sell software, music and other digital products. Vodnik joins Practical eCommerce’s Kerry Murdock,

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Littlepixiegifts.com.au

    August 5, 2008 •

    I don’t spend a lot of time shopping on baby-oriented gift sites, but I get a lot of requests for report card reviews from them. This will not only be the first time I’ve reviewed a baby site, but an Australian site as well. I was taken with the pleasant design, especially the cute baby...

  • Google Knol: An SEO Perspective Marketing & Advertising

    Google Knol: An SEO Perspective

    August 4, 2008 •

    I first wrote about Google Knol here at Practical Ecommerce in January 2008, before it was open to the general public. Now that it is live, the Knol project is worth revisiting because of its potential search engine optimization ramifications. As has been well documented, Knol is a n...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Music123.com

    June 17, 2008 •

    I’m a musical gear-aholic. My apartment is littered with instruments leaning against walls, stashed in corners, and propped up in closets. I’ve never met a guitar or keyboard I didn’t like. Having said that, while I frequent online music malls, I’ve never shopped at Music123.com. That s...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Yahoo! Glue and You: How Blended Search Affects eCommerce

    June 4, 2008 •

    More than likely, you’ve heard the terms “blended search,” “federated search,” or “universal search” (Google’s name for it). They refer to a new form of search engine results that especially affect anyone concerned with search marketing. The term blended search has become the most neutr...

  • Google Ads

    Pay-Per-Click Tools Improve Productivity

    May 19, 2008 •

    Daily pay-per-click management routine is not a lot of fun. Thankfully, there are a few tools out there that make the work much more efficient and allow search engine marketing professionals to look at the big picture. Below is a list of software tools that every pay-per-click account o...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Pawleyfarm.com

    May 12, 2008 •

    This month's report card website is Pawleyfarm.com, a small site that sells personalized country photographs and note cards. The home page says, "Just as a home-cooked meal nourishes body and soul, our custom matted and framed artwork carries along a bit of peace and contentment." The d...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    When SEO Isn't Really SEO

    March 31, 2008 •

    A potential client recently asked a good question. She regularly reads various search-engine-optimization websites, and she was confused as to the current meaning of the term "SEO." What, she wondered, was the difference between SEO and online marketing? Search engine optimization, or ...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Interview: ‘Ask.com Search Results Are Different’

    March 17, 2008 •

    Interactive Corp., or IAC, owns many large Internet-based companies. These companies include Lendingtree.com, Realestate.com, Match.com and Ticketmaster.com. IAC also owns Ask.com, the search engine that competes with Google, Yahoo! and MSN. IAC's chairman, Barry Diller, is attempting ...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Social Networking: Build Your Own Community

    March 17, 2008 •

    There is not a day that goes by that I don't reflect on how to leverage social media, including social networks, for marketing purposes. I have tried a number of approaches, some of which have been successful and some of which have not. This month, I want to share an idea that I think h...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Seenon.com

    March 10, 2008 •

    This month's report card website is Seenon.com, an ecommerce site that tracks the fashion tendencies of the famous and sells those garments and accoutrements to interested consumers. The site is pleasant to the eye and has an exciting, almost urgent feel to it, but how does it do in ter...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Field Test: Social Networking, 3 of 3

    February 25, 2008 •

    In Field Test, Practical eCommerce has gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is social networking. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Justin Hertz, Mut...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Field Test: Social Networking, Part 2 of 3

    February 20, 2008 •

    In Field Test, Practical eCommerce has gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is social networking. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Justin Hertz, Mut...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Field Test: Social Networking, Part 1 of 3

    February 18, 2008 •

    In Field Test, Practical eCommerce has gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is social networking. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Justin Hertz, Mut...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Agoodyarn.net

    February 6, 2008 •

    I don’t knit, but around the holidays I was given a fantastic sweater knitted by the gift-giver. It’s warm and unique, and just to be in the spirit, I’m wearing it as I write this. Uniqueness, of course, is also an issue in terms of search engine optimization; every page of a website ne...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Choose A Platform And Blog, Blog, Blog

    February 4, 2008 •

    Because search engines tend to reward blogs in several ways, corporate and ecommerce sites ought to look at the possibility of adding one or more blogs. As Stephan Spencer underscores "SEO: Blogging Your Way To The Top", search engines’ ranking algorithms revolve around links, and the b...

  • Google Ads

    Negative Keywords For Your PPC Campaign

    January 9, 2008 •

    Keywords are an integral part of any online advertising campaign. However, what is sometimes overlooked is the equal importance of negative keywords, which are word filters that disqualify ads from being triggered by users’ search queries. For example, if the term “iPhone” is one of you...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Juvieshop.com

    January 7, 2008 •

    Juvie is a kid’s clothing store in Los Angeles, and it is balancing the hipness of Flash-based features (not particularly SEO-friendly) with the common sense of good textual content (always SEO-friendly) on the home page of its ecommerce site. The site focuses on hip, modern and stylish...

  • Google Ads

    Pay-Per-Click Account Tools

    January 7, 2008 •

    A daily pay-per-click management routine can sometimes be a source of frustration. Thankfully, there are a few tools out there to streamline the process. What follows is a list of software that every pay-per-click account owner should consider. AdWords Editor AdWords Editor is Google’...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Google Knol Looks To Take On Wikipedia

    January 2, 2008 •

    Online reputation is an important part of any SEO campaign. It can drive traffic and promote links, and when a new opportunity arises for such reputation management, it should be explored sooner rather than later. A few weeks ago, Udi Manber, Google's vice president of engineering, ann...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Oreweb.ca

    December 3, 2007 •

    ORE stands for Office Resources and Equipment, and not surprisingly the website sells business office equipment. What is surprising about this Canadian company is the way its website is designed. It’s an interesting blueprint that uses JavaScript and frames to load pages into a single U...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    If Website Is Broke, Don’t Go Broke Fixing It

    November 28, 2007 •

    Traffic down? Conversions starting to wane? It could be any number of SEO issues. Finding free online tools to hone search optimization for an ecommerce site can be tough. There are a lot of them out there, often promotional in nature, and they offer varying degrees of features and reli...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    SEO Report Card: Back40books.com

    November 7, 2007 •

    According to the site’s “About Us” page, Back 40 Books is run by back-to-nature people and the books they sell on their site are predominantly focused on issues related to that lifestyle. It also sounds as if the website was put together by these same outdoor people with little help fro...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Baiting The Social Media Crowd

    September 27, 2007 •

    You may recall that Stephan Spencer (I am now taking over his two columns here at Practical Ecommerce) wrote about link baiting some months ago. To sum up his thoughts, inbound links are good. Search engines improve rankings of a given page or website based upon the number and quality o...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Google AdWords: Structure For Success

    September 3, 2007 •

    As I work with many companies to improve and refine their conversion rate from paid search efforts such as Google AdWords, I have noticed a general misunderstanding about how the structural elements of Campaigns vs. Ad Groups should be used. Correctly structuring your Google account al...

  • Google Ads

    Critique Part Two: Pay-Per-Click Advertising

    May 30, 2007 •

    The Problem: A quick glance at Daddies Board Shop's Google account indicates in-depth keyword research was not performed. The Fix: It appears that the company chose keywords based on insider business knowledge but hasn't considered what terms people actually use to search. For example,...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    How To Create ‘Buzz,’ Boost Traffic At Your Site

    May 21, 2007 •

    Over the last year or so, "social media" has quickly become the next "big" thing online. A plethora of social communities with names like Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Wikipedia and YouTube have popped up to connect people who share common interests. As impressive as all that may sou...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Tutorial: Gaining Control of Search Engine Spiders

    February 12, 2007 •

    Introduction Most of us are familiar with the term “search engine spider” and at least understand that they have something to do with how search engines index websites. The purpose of this article is to help you make your web pages more accessible to spiders. After all, spiders are our...

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