eCommerce and Marketing News & Tips

Duplicated content - the Myth is busted by Google

Google has been on the warpath to dispel some of the rumors that have been circulating the net about...

Marketing in a Bloated Market

Posted in Marketing March 16th, 2010 by admin - Be the first to comment

Marketing isn’t what it used to be. While it used to be a fairly straight forward of advertising versus product demand, the market has become so bloated with the introduction of ecommerce that it is next to impossible for some small businesses to reach their audience. In order to do so one any real level online they have to first trudge through larger companies, endless scams, and the various marketing ploys of individual companies, affiliates, and con artists trying to make a quick buck.

The problem can seem to be insurmountable. For some, it will prove to be. But if you are looking to market online there are ways you can increase visibility that will at least trim the fat and give you some leverage to work with. Each technique will only increase your visibility as much as a company of your size can, so you will want to make sure you follow by the usual small business marketing codes despite these methods.

Beware of the wrong SEO

Search engine optimization is pretty much a must have for small businesses that are working in an ecommerce format. But there is a right and a wrong way, and going about things in a negative fashion will mean negative results. Literally; you will risk losing the customers you already have. This includes spam-style operations that are so common with online ‘companies’ nowadays.

Your best bet is to go with a company that specialized in SEO and marketing solutions for small businesses, and know how to get you started successfully online. These companies will never force you to settle with bad mass-comment jobs, or mindless blog posts with unrelated anchor links. They will provide real search engine optimization for a professional marketing approach.

Zencart Ajax Search

Posted in Add Ons March 11th, 2010 by admin - Comments (6)

We have just released a new module for Zencart, Zencart Ajax Search allows you to show your customers the results of their search right when they type the keyword which will help your customers to quickly find what they want on your site.

The module is designed to work on all major browsers, and to allow the default search to work properly with or without javascript enabled on the customers’ browsers.

Another great news is that there is a 10% Discount coupon which can be applied for any purchase from now until March 17.
Coupon code: spring5

New Zencart Webdesign (Admin backend)

Posted in Zencart March 11th, 2010 by admin - Comments (20)

If you haven’t known already, we are working with Mano the author of ZenMagick to create a new slick backend for ZM since we are tired of the messy look of Zencart.

Below are some of the designs, we researched several other modern carts to get inspirational ideas, so you will probably see something familiar here and there. Let us know what you think

This is the very first option we came up with, we decided to move the navigation to the left

This is where you will edit your products. Mass product action will be a welcome feature!

We are considering using facebox effect here, but shriking down all other menus is also an option

We are working on the rest of the design, and so suggestions are very welcome ^_^

Viral Marketing & Link Bait Basics: Part VIII

Posted in SEO News and Analysis February 26th, 2010 by admin - Comments (1)

There is a general type of linkbaiting method that is often used on the Internet, much more so that specified marketing campaigns. These are especially useful for those that have content-rich sites, such as blogs, or anything that is meant to sell information via traffic, rather than through a direct product. This is general viral marketing and linkbaiting, which can be applied in several difference ways. Each one should appeal to a different source, and slightly alter the way that traffic is created.

Blogs

Quickly becoming a staple of the online world, blogs are a better place than ever to generate interest. Because they are so easily shared socially, they make great viral marketing foundations for your website. This is also true of generating links. Blogs will commonly link to one another, and they have to do legally use a source. Using the day’s top interest points, or targeted niches, will help to ensure you regularly bait links through your own blog.

What you have to decide is the purpose of the blog itself. Most will probably have it stand alone, and put all their time and effort into updating it, and branding it. This is commonly seen with news blogs, gossip blogs, technology blogs…anything that moves quickly and has to shift from day to day. This will always bring in the most links.

Next, you have general interest blogs. These don’t bring in as many links, but they do often get dedicated followers for the information you provide. For example, you may create a site dedicated to offering all natural beauty tips, or reviewing video games and movies. They won’t be updated on a day to day basis, but they will generate a good deal of interest, and continue bringing in links on the same topics for a long while.

Last, you have SEO blogs. These are sites that have posts created specifically to anchor links. These can be beneficial for advertising purposes for another website, but they can also be easily caught. You should think of these as hit and miss options. They may help to boost you in small spurts, but those are not lasting. They are like the Mario Energy Stars of the linkbaiting world….effective, but not at all permanent.

Viral Marketing & Link Bait Basics: Part VII

Posted in SEO News and Analysis February 19th, 2010 by admin - Be the first to comment

As you continue on the round to successful link baiting you might notice something that most marketers end up seeing at some point: content only draws in backlinks for so long. It doesn’t matter how good the content you have created it, or how many links it attracts during the first few weeks. Once a campaign has run its course, whether that be over a month, or over a few hours, it is done. That same content cannot generally be resurrected again.

There is one main exception to this rule. That is when you have written a second part to the original, and link it through that content to the original source. This may bring in some backlinks as new visitors seek it out for reference. This is a good strategy to keep milking a particularly helpful bit of content a little while longer, but won’t work long term either, as that second part will eventually go out of vogue as well.

Regarding Zencart’s cross sell module

Posted in Add Ons February 17th, 2010 by admin - Be the first to comment

We have received reports that many people are having problem with the module not being compatible with the new version of Module Manager, this is to be expected and we are deeply sorry for the inconvenience. A new version has been posted under the support thread of this module, and if all go well we will post it to download section soon.

We will be working on a new xsell module that will suggest related products automatically, so if you have any suggestion or features that you want please let us know now.

Sincerely yours,

Rubik Team

Viral Marketing & Link Bait Basics: Part VI

Posted in SEO News and Analysis February 11th, 2010 by admin - Be the first to comment

Today I would like to talk about using linkbaiting as a means of establishing positive public relations for your company or website. When used correctly, you can use a few well placed items of viral marketing to create an image of professionalism and trust for your business. It is the proper way to go about using this method or marketing, and it is another reason that it is so important to be mindful of what kind of content you use.

It is also a method of using the viral content itself to draw in links, and it is a much more effective way for medium-sized businesses and websites to compete with larger ones, which have a great deal of funding at their disposal for advertising campaigns. Just think of the videos, commercials, ads, contents, and gimmicks that have been used in the past.

An example is the recent release of a website for the movie ’2012′. They created a fake organization called The Institute for Human Continuity, which offers a fake lottery to become one of those saved when the world “ends” in 2012. They created a well formed website, professionally done, to cause a hype, and they didn’t announce it as a marketing campaign. They even managed to secure a .org domain to increase it’s realism.

Great Marketing

Increase sales by tracking site search

Posted in eCommerce February 7th, 2010 by admin - Be the first to comment

Google Analytics (GA) is a popular service for many small – medium ecommerce businesses because it can provide almost all the features that other commercial (paid) services can provide while staying FREE.

Many people, however, don’t know how to take full advantage of the power that GA offers them. Last week I was chatting with a client and turned out she did not know that she could track what the customers search on her site with GA. Just imagine how surprised and happy she was. Knowing what your customers searching on your site along with other factors (how many times they have to refine their search, how deep did they have to dig down, … to find what they are looking for) can help you to stock your store with the products that are on demand, or to re-work your internal search engine to give better search result.

Setting up site search tracking is very easy:

http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75817

For Zencart, you should use keyword for “Query Parameter” and categories_id for “Category Parameter”

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