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We have essentially outsourced several important divisions of our little company to Solid Cactus.
In turning over customer service, call center services and PPC marketing, our little company
now looks very big.

—Paul Roth, StyloFinePens.com

StyloFinePens.com is an example of how passion leads to ambition. After working with pens for years as a manager of a local pen shop, Paul Roth finally decided to take his passion to the next level and founded Stylo Fine Pens in 2006 making him owner and CEO of his own specialty writing instruments store. Seeing the obvious, nine months after opening the San Francisco-based store, StyloFinePens.com was finished. “The online component of the business really helped things sky rocket,” Roth admits. “Now we’re not dependent on any specific location.”

That expansion came with its own problems. Stylo Fine Pens, as the name suggests, sells a limited range of generally high-end writing instruments. When the calls started coming in from the website, Paul realized he was losing out. “Every time the phone would ring, there would be a customer in front of us…the calls were just dropping. Every time we would serve someone in the store we would also get this kind of a pang that we were losing a sale.” Call Center Services were an obvious option for StyloFinePens.com.

“Call Center completely changed our business and without a doubt was the very best business decision we’ve made,” says Paul. “Now if the phone rings more than three times, we hear it drop-off and we know it drops to a friendly place.” Adding Call Center Services was the first move in a triple play which Paul Roth says completely changed his business.

The second move was adding live chat. Solid Cactus partnered with LivePerson offering Managed Live Chat to Call Center clients. With Managed Live Chat, online visitors simply click an icon and a chat window appears with an agent waiting on the other end to answer any questions the customer may have.

Paul was part of the process from the beginning. Solid Cactus Managed Live Chat subscribers are encouraged to take part in the training of agents in order to ensure customers receive appropriate treatment and accurate information. Clients fill out an in-depth questionnaire depicting how they want their customers to be handled, as well as providing information on products they carry. In addition, clients are asked for text and copy that relate to products, and culture specifications for the brands they sell.

Live Chat agents find pride in selling specialty products such as Stylo’s pens. “I wondered myself, ‘how intricate could it be?’” Paul says. “But it is. People want to know why they should buy a $600 pen when they can buy one for $30. The staff really caught on to that.”

Ironically, the final move piece in the transformation of StyloFinePens.com occurred to Paul Roth while reading an issue of eBiz (we’re so proud!). “I struggled with PPC advertising like everyone else,” he recalls. “Then I read about a guy who’d turned his business over to Solid Cactus and let them handle his search engine marketing.” I decided they probably knew considerably more about pay-per-click than I did, so I let them handle it.”

This is where eBiz Insider and our parent Solid Cactus look really good. “Three big things happened,” says Paul. “First, our calls decreased. Second, our clicks decreased. Third and most important though, our sales stayed the same! That means we were able to cut our pay-per-click spending by two thirds. That’s huge!”

Bottom line, Paul Roth will be the first to tell you that Stylo Fine Pens is a 1400 square foot dot in San Francisco. “But we have a sophisticated website,” Paul says. “When customers call we have call center and we answer e-mail inquiries with live chat. We are professional from top to bottom. No one can tell how big—or small–we really are.”

“Bounce rates” are critical to search marketing. A “bounce” is when a visitor reaches your site, views the entry page and leaves. A healthy bounce rate in a niche market is about 30%; if your products are aimed at a broader audience lean towards 50%. Google’s free Analytics data is a great way to review benchmarking.

If your bounces are below 30% you are doing something very, very right. Above 50% means half of your traffic is leaving immediately and it’s time for changes– be they color themes, navigation, pricing points, re-categorization, keyword changes and/or landing page modifications.

The opposite of a bouncing is called being “sticky.” It measures how much of your traffic sticks around. If your stickiness is 75% - three quarters of your traffic is staying put and going at least one page deep.

In SEM, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) bounce rate can either make or break you. You are (1) paying for the traffic and (2) in total control of that traffic – make sure your keywords line up with your ads and your site. Better keywords mean a lower bounce rate and more relevant traffic. Search engines reward relevancy by increasing your campaign’s quality score.

Several SEM metrics are important to increase conversion rates, improve Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and capture more market share

You can measure a bounce on several different levels:

1. Landing Page – what is the bounce rate of that particular product, or category/section page?

2. Keyword Level – what happens to
the traffic once it reaches your intended page?

3. Ad Level – does your creative/copy match the page where your visitors
are landing?

4. Position – with sponsored results, positions 1 to 3 get lots of clicks but generally don’t convert as well as lower paid search positions. Check your analytics to see which positions
convert the best at and have the
lowest bounce rate.

5. Engine / Traffic Source – sometimes the demographics of the advertising engine don’t line up with your buyers’ demographics. For example, college students are most likely to use Google while senior citizens are heavy MSN Search users.

Think of a bounce in terms of a customer entering your store, looking around and leaving. Now, in the e-commerce world think of this as a visitor entering your site and not going more than one page deep, not engaging in live chat, checking shipping or even adding an item to the shopping cart.

Keep images, content, links and logos in check and above the fold. If you disrupt a buyer’s intention you risk a hard bounce. When the customer has to look around for what they searched for within a few seconds, you risk a bounce.

Optimizing paid search campaigns for bounce rates can help you increase your conversion rate, decrease your cost and ultimately (hopefully) convert more and at a higher percentage.

Have a sticky day!

Your domain name is the most
powerful piece of branding your store
has on the Web!

A strong, recognizable domain name for your business can bring even more organic traffic to your site. A poor domain name can prevent surfers from ever finding your site.

Show the Engines Who You Are!

Include keywords or phrases in
your domain name to increase high natural search engine rankings. What makes you unique from the competition? What’s important to your industry or exemplifies your approach? Then evaluate your choices.

Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) is a great, streamlined resource for investigating search volume. If I’m starting a blog
about my favorite pretzels, I could
type in phrases like “pretzel blogger”, “pretzel blogs”, and maybe even just “pretzels” on the off-chance that the name is available.

As you can see, the phrase “pretzels” has an average search volume of about 165,000 queries each month. The bad news is that our other terms don’t generate any search volume at all - they’re not even on the list.

Our best-performing choice - Pretzels.com - is parked. These “parked domains” are registered but land on pages without useful content. Most fill their sites with ads to cash in on direct traffic coming into the site in error. Finding a high-traffic keyword to incorporate into your domain is a quick and efficient way to gain traffic. For instance, SoftPretzelRecipes.com would be a good choice if it ties into the theme of your site.

If you’re stumped on domain name suggestions, check out SnapItNow.com for a comprehensive list of variations on the keywords you want to pursue.

Name Checking

Just because a domain is available now doesn’t mean that someone didn’t previously ruin its reputation with the search engines. The Internet (as the kids say) never forgets and a new store can suffer from a previously banned or blacklisted domain. Perform proactive domain detective work.

The WayBack Machine (http://www.archive.org) can show you old versions of a website, indexed by date. Check to see if they’re link farms or pages with spam-filled, malicious code. Search engine indexes penalize the latter. The process of getting re-indexed can be long and painful, so avoid these domains
wherever possible.

Redirected Domains -
The 411 on 301s

If an available domain name resembles your site, don’t leave it for someone else! Pointing multiple domains at your website is a wise tactic for attracting more direct traffic. Registering alternate top-level domains - TLDs are the suffixes in a URL, the .com, .net, .org or .biz in the site’s address - can salvage repeat shoppers who don’t remember if your site was PretzelBlogger.net or PretzelBlogger.biz.

Registering alternate domains is smart brand protection. If you leave PretzelBlogger.org unregistered and a competitor provides terrible customer service, their bad business practices will damage you.

A domain costs less than $10, so cover any plausible top-level variations for your domain and use your new keyword research skills to discover high-traffic misspellings of your domain name. Look for domains that will pass value (traffic) onto your store’s site. As for the domain with the lousy history, redirecting the bad domain at your already vetted good domain means you get all the traffic and none of the bad history.

Once you have those domains registered, set up a 301 redirect to point them to your e-commerce store. It might be tempting to turn some of your domains into dummy sites that link into your store, but engines frown on that strategy. Make sure every variation of your domain (yes, even PretzelBlogger.com vs. www.PretzelBlogger.com - Google counts the version without the ‘www’ prefix as a separate entity) points to the true, canonical version of your site.

Summing up

Successful branding, a strong Paid Search campaign, qualified links and a healthy social media presence can help even the most obscure domain find incoming traffic. Picking the right domain name from the start, however, can reinforce
your brand and bring in an increased amount of direct and repeat traffic. Smart domain selection makes your e-commerce website more effective and requires just a little research!

E-mail marketing is a powerful tool that allows you to keep in touch with your customers, drive repeat business and reinforce your brand. But it’s more than simply typing up a quick letter. There’s technique, best practice guidelines, regulatory compliance, look, feel and other aspects that go into sending a successful, well-received e-mail.

There are many e-mail options. With managed solutions, an e-mail marketing specialist takes the reins designing, writing and sending your campaigns for you. Other companies require you to do all the work while they simply maintain your lists and send your e-mail. Finally, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solutions provide pre-designed templates to send semi-personalized messages.

Plan, plan, plan! That’s how you
develop your paid search, affiliate, comparison shopping engine, or website redesign strategy.

Let’s review do’s, don’ts, common mistakes and best practices to help optimize your e-mail campaigns this holiday season.

1 From Address: Tells who you are. HotMess@gmail.com? That’s what you’ll get from this e-mail campaign. Sending from info@pretzelbloggers.com, mail@pretzelbloggers.com, or even sales@pretzelbloggers.com lets the recipient know who the sender is.

2 Send Time: Research shows most people check their e-mail during business, many first thing in the morning, before and after lunch and before they leave the office for the day. The best time to e-mail is often debated. My expertise agrees with industry experts that, for retail purposes, sending between Tuesday and Thursdays, mid-morning to early afternoon are ideal times.

3 Subject: This is your one shot to get them to open. Fail and your campaign is doomed. Remember, 50 characters are all that stands between you and a successful campaign, make those 50 letters colorful, appealing and enticing.

Misrepresentation: It is against the CAN-SPAM Act to misrepresent the content of the advertisement by tricking people to open under false pretenses. As you can see, Pretzelbloggers is not giving away free cash.

Spam Word: Occasionally, “free” in the subject line is a good idea. Too often it will get caught in spam filters.

Capitalization & Punctuation: Spam filters target them as junk mail.

4 Template Design: A custom designed template is always better than a generic one. You can see this template is a “plug and place.” There are predetermined boxes and sizes and you simply fill in the blanks. The template box lines are obvious, the images don’t fit to size and overall the template gives off a very unprofessional appearance.

5 Logo: Include your logo or header. People can identify your brand as soon as they open.

6 Navigation Bar: Remember— when including navigation links – too many is not always a good thing. Including too many can be a distraction to your reader. Deciding what you want them to notice is a sensitive balance.

7 Images: Make them clean, clear and concise. If the image isn’t important to your message, don’t include it. Remember, images are great ways to cheat spam filters – include phrases like ‘free shipping,’ ‘buy now’ and ‘10% off’ in your image.

8 Personalization: Personalization allows you to speak directly to your client. Done badly, it can look cheesy.

9 Text: Including text in every e-mail is important. If the reader opens, doesn’t enable the images and sees nothing, they’ll be quick to close. Include text to convey the message
your images are portraying.

While text is important, so is following CAN-SPAM Act regulations (including capitalization, punctuation, and avoiding key spam words like Free, Sale, Buy Now, and Click Here), ensuring to use spell check and proper grammar. A misspelled work can ruin your reputation.

10 Physical Address: To be CAN-SPAM compliant every e-mail must include the physical address of the company sending the message.

11 Opt Out: Every e-mail must have an opt out link. This link must be a one-click opt-out. Don’t take a chance on this - FTC regulations can fine you up to $11,000 per offense.

E-mail marketing remains a powerful tool in e-commerce, but it’s a sophisticated world out there. E-mail only works if someone reads what you’re writing. Profile your target customers. What would make them open your e-mail instead of dumping it? Review the best practices above and combine it with your insights for e-mail marketing success.

A perfect dozen warm, triple chocolate peanut-butter fudge brownies sit in front of you, beckoning. You know you should eat just one, but it’s so tempting to indulge in a little extra, right?

Wrong. No brownie tastes quite as scrumptious as that first one, and your waistline will notice.

It is similar for search marketing.
Search engine “spiders” crawl a site and rank it for keyword phrases. Common, tried-and-true SEO techniques include adding search engine optimized content to your site, creating effective, unique meta tags, and reaching out to quality sites and propelling them to link to your site from theirs. But what happens when you do all of the above, and your site drops in the rankings?! Your site may very well be suffering from Search Engine Over-Optimization.

Post the following phrase on your computer: No more over-optimizing your SEO campaign! Below are ways
to ensure your site meets SEO expectations and doesn’t suffer from search engine indigestion.

Keyword Stuffing

No, keyword stuffing is not Mom’s special dish at Thanksgiving– nor is it an ingredient to SEO success. Ever visit a site and notice a pile of keyword phrases listed on the page? Doesn’t exactly make you want to stay on that page too long, right? It’s the same way for search engine spiders - it causes them to ask, “Hey, is this site owner trying to deceive me?”

The penalty comes when search engine spiders drop you in the rankings or even remove you altogether. Some operators make keywords the same color as the background so visitors won’t see them. Search engines will see them and penalize you.

Meta Tags Madness

Meta tags are no longer the magic solution. They’re not as widely recognized as they once were by search engines; however optimizing them correctly can help your SEO campaign. Before you simply add 50 meta keywords to your homepage, read this:

• Meta-Title: The meta-title is the copy in the blue bar at the top of your Internet browser. This is one of the first parts of your site search engine spiders see, so be sure a competitive keyword phrase is included in it. Be brief - 60-120 characters (including spaces) is sufficient.

• Meta-Keywords: Meta-keywords tell a search engine the products/services on a page. Include only keywords related to the specific page you’re working on and cap it at five! Your homepage can have about 10.

• Meta-Description: Many search engines use a site’s Meta-description as the short summary under a site’s search result listing on a search engine results page. Like the other meta fields, be specific with each section page. Write two to three sentences about page content and include the keyword phrase you’re optimizing for two times throughout the Meta-description.

Oodles of Content

Search engine optimized content is integral to a successful SEO campaign. But there is such a thing as too much content.

Review your homepage and section pages - are they so text-heavy that it takes a ton of scrolling just to find your products?

Your homepage and section page should contain about two paragraphs of content with your keyword phrase included about three times. Create a “Resources” or “Articles” section on your site and include full SEO-friendly content pages. Write informative articles on topics related to your industry that your site visitors will actually want to read. Practice moderation - if you find yourself with hundreds of articles, it’s time to put down the keyboard….

Link Building = Partnership Building

If you’re interested in SEO, you know the importance of links. As search engines get smarter, they’re taking more into account than just the number of links pointing to your site. Rather than beg for more links, develop a list of 20 sites that would make great partners. Review their traffic and how respected they are in their industry. Contact the site owner directly (yes! Use the phone!) and outline a mutually beneficial plan. These days it’s the quality of the sites linking to you, not the quantity!

A Skim SEO Campaign,
No Whip, Thanks

SEO is a long term strategy, and your rankings will not shoot up in the results overnight. Stick to our SEO tips and resist the urge to over-indulge. Now go eat one of those triple-chocolate peanut-butter fudge brownies. You’ve earned it.