SEO Archives

The PEC Review: Speedtest.net

May 17, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Most ecommerce merchants are digital natives, spending hours each day online, managing orders, marketing, or just staying ahead of the competition. When so much of your working day is spent on the Internet, even modest changes in upload and download speeds can have a major impact on pr...

Technical SEO

SEO MAYDAY: Analyzing the Impact of Algorithmic Changes

May 13, 2010 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google makes periodic adjustments to its algorithm that determines organic search results. It likely does this each day, using small adjustments, to avoid large-scale mayhem that infrequent adjustments would presumably cause. Recently, however, many SEO professionals have detected dram...

SEO

SEO Report Card: Springbok-Puzzles.com

May 10, 2010 • Stephan Spencer

In this installment of "SEO Report Card," we'll be looking at Springbok-Puzzles.com. Springbok is a well-known brand among jigsaw puzzle aficionados. Allied Products is behind the Springbok Puzzles brand, having acquired the rights in 2002 from Hallmark, who used to sell the brand exclu...

On-page SEO

The PEC Review: Page Speed

May 10, 2010 • Armando Roggio

Site performance or speed is a key factor in improving sales conversions. How quickly your website loads may be the difference between making a sale or losing a potential customer. For example, 52 percent of respondents to a 2009 study from Akamai and Forrester Research said that page ...

Link Building

Combine Search Engines and Social Media for Link Building

April 27, 2010 • Bill Hartzer

I recently spoke at an Internet marketing conference about that state of search engine optimization in 2010. One of the points that I made during the presentation is that search engines and social media networks are converging. In 2010, if you want to rank well in the search engines, yo...

On-page SEO

Search Engine Optimization in 2010: What You Need to Know Now

April 21, 2010 • Bill Hartzer

Editor’s Note: is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and the owner of BillHartzer.com, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared in that company’s blog. If you want to use search engine optimization best practices, or want to get u...

Technical SEO

SEO: Google Ranks Site Speed, Too

April 19, 2010 • Jill Kocher Brown

In its continuing quest to provide searchers with the best possible search experience, Google announced last week that site speed is now a signal in its search ranking algorithms. Along with the hundreds of other signals, like link popularity and keyword relevance, Google is now factori...

Technical SEO

Search Engine Optimization Overkill

March 31, 2010 • Bill Hartzer

Editor’s Note: is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and the owner of BillHartzer.com, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared on his website, BillHartzer.com. Are you using search engine optimization tactics that lead to overkil...

Keyword Research

Test: Mobile Search Results For Popular Retail-Shopping Keywords

March 25, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons

The number of mobile users is increasing at a far greater rate, it seems, than the number of mobile sites. But some merchants have already begun reacting to the mobile web by optimizing their sites for these devices. In order to get a feel for the current status of the mobile ecommerc...

SEO

SEO Report Card: Hybrid-racing.com Combines WordPress, Magento

March 23, 2010 • Stephan Spencer

The co-owner of Hybrid-racing.com, Will Davidson, requested a search-engine-optimization site review. I'm happy to oblige. The first thing that struck me was that WordPress was the main "wrapper" for the site, powering the home page, tech articles, gallery, blog, and product informatio...

SEO Tools

Google Product Search: Creating a Data Feed

March 17, 2010 • Bill Hartzer

Editor's Note: This is our monthly installment of "Everything Google," a feature on products and services from Google that can help ecommerce merchants. The author is Bill Hartzer, the owner of BillHartzer.com, a SEO, pay-per-click and ecommerce consulting firm in Dallas. Google Produ...

Link Building

SEO: Link Bait Can Increase Rankings

February 17, 2010 • Jill Kocher Brown

Link bait is the practice of creating useful or compelling content that will lure links naturally to a website. It’s fun, it’s trendy, and it can produce very big search-engine-optimization results. Contrary to most interactive marketing goals, link bait’s primary goal is increasing t...

SEO

SEO Report Card: Juggle.com “Not a Traditional eCommerce Site”

February 11, 2010 • Stephan Spencer

I'm proud to say that this is my first report card as a vice president of Covario. The company I founded in 1995, Netconcepts, was acquired last month by Covario, a search-engine-marketing and search-engine-optimization software and services company for large online retailers. This mon...

Keyword Research

Ask an Expert: How to Get Better Search Rankings for Major Keywords

February 8, 2010 • PEC Staff

"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, we address a question about ranking on search engines for major keywords. It comes from Jeramie Westbay, owner operator for Crazy Ed's Roadkill, an online store...

Technical SEO

Ask An Expert: How to Redirect URLs Without Losing Link Juice

January 21, 2010 • PEC Staff

"Ask an Expert" is an occasional feature where we ask ecommerce experts questions from online merchants. For this installment, we address a question about redirecting users from old URLs to new ones. It comes from Brian Rogers, web merchandising manager for 511 Tactical, an online (and ...

SEO

Stalking Competitors’ SEO Tactics

January 20, 2010 • Jill Kocher Brown

Despite my contention that Internet marketers need to stop obsessing about rankings, an examination of the SEO tactics of competitors that outrank your site can be extremely enlightening. Stalking a competitor's SEO tactics can uncover content optimization and link building opportunitie...

Link Building

SEO: Remember LinkedIn for Inbound Links

December 23, 2009 • Bill Hartzer

Editor’s Note: Bill Hartzer is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and manager of search engine optimization and social media marketing with VizionInteractive, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared in that company’s blog. Inbound...

SEO

SEO Report Card: BabyGiftIdea.com

December 17, 2009 • Stephan Spencer

For this month, I am reviewing BabyGiftIdea.com, at co-owner Pat Laws' request. Pat and her husband bought the business from the original owner in May 2008. The site has been online for about nine years, so it definitely has some history and credibility in the eyes of Google. Pat shar...

Technical SEO

SEO: Capture More Search Traffic with Rich Snippets

December 16, 2009 • Jill Kocher Brown

The difference between a snippet and a rich snippet is the difference between just showing up at a party and showing up in style. Showing up in style can ensure you get the attention you want. For an ecommerce merchant, "the party" is a search engine's results page. A snippet is your U...

Link Building

SEO: Link-building Opportunities

December 3, 2009 • Jeff Muendel

Link building is an ever-changing landscape. This is because the search engines make changes to their algorithms to thwart artificial link building, and because link building as a practice continues to morph. As time goes on, more webmasters will become aware of the importance that inbo...

Technical SEO

SEO: Forgotten Content Can Damage Search Performance

November 17, 2009 • Jill Kocher Brown

Sometimes a site’s own past dampens its bright SEO future. The forgotten designs, old campaigns, and abandoned domains that accumulate unnoticed in a web server can have a negative impact on a site’s ability to rank and drive natural search-referred traffic and sales. Search engines ret...

SEO

SEO Report Card: WisconsinMade.com Needs Quick Tweaks for the Holidays

November 10, 2009 • Stephan Spencer

As we enter into the holiday shopping season, it's all hands on deck for merchants selling gift baskets. The Wisconsin specialist e-tailer Wisconsin Made is no exception. The challenge is to make an impact in what little time is left in the year. Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't i...

SEO

SEO Report Card: Moodswingsonthenet.com Offers Retro Fashion, Retro SEO

October 21, 2009 • Stephan Spencer

Our "SEO Report Card" for this month is Moodswingsonthenet.com. The CEO of Moodswings, Elizabeth Bighorse, requested this review, and she told us that the company has just finished a re-launch of its "multiple sales channel" site. Moodswings focuses on urban, rockabilly, tattoo and alt...

Technical SEO

SEO: There Is No Duplicate Content Penalty

October 15, 2009 • Jill Kocher Brown

There is a long held belief that search engines – namely Google – penalize websites that duplicate content or produce material that is largely the same as other sites on the Internet. But, I’m here to tell you, The Duplicate Content Penalty is a myth. Think about it this way. If a page...

SEO Tools

Ecommerce Know-How: Optimizing Your Site for Microsoft Bing

September 22, 2009 • Armando Roggio

The Microsoft, Yahoo! search deal announced in July still faces legal hurdles, but as more details have become available, it is clear that the companies' combined search share has—for the first time in perhaps a decade—created some real competition for Google. Depending on which poll o...

SEO

SEO: Search Engine Rankings Vary Among Searchers

September 16, 2009 • Jill Kocher Brown

Rankings have long been a valued metric in search marketing. After all, it's easy to monitor and seems like a really important measure. However, if you really want to measure the effectiveness of your SEO campaign, stop obsessing about rankings. Proactively changing the focus of your c...

SEO

SEO Report Card: PhotoWeights.com

September 11, 2009 • Stephan Spencer

This month’s site up for review is PhotoWeights.com. Owned by Susan Eaton, PhotoWeights.com sells personalized, do-it-yourself paperweight kits from family photos and other artwork. Eaton requested this "SEO Report Card" review. Home Page First things first, the home page has some maj...

Keyword Research

Ecommerce Know-How: Understanding Brand-Influenced Search Queries

August 25, 2009 • Armando Roggio

When shoppers navigate to a search engine and begin their queries, they usually have some idea of what they are looking for. In many cases, that initial idea is the result of brand-influence. In very general terms, search engine queries fall on a specificity scale. On one end of this s...

Technical SEO

Ecommerce Know-How: Adobe Flash vs. Search Engine Optimization

July 27, 2009 • Armando Roggio

New technology, user demand, and search-engine-optimized design are making it possible for search engines to index, rank and display sites developed completely with the Adobe Flash platform. To be sure, rich Internet applications (RIAs), like those created with Flash and Flex, are a ch...

SEO

SEO Report Card: OnlyHangers.com Has a Good Home Page, Bad Product Pages

July 23, 2009 • Stephan Spencer

This month fortune smiles on OnlyHangers.com for a free site review. We received the request from the company's owner, Ron Maier. In a way, OnlyHangers.com is in an enviable position because it is in such a niche market; so the known universe of relevant search terms is relatively small...