2008.06 Blog post on Link Building and Keyword Ranking

Long-time Yahoo! merchant and marketing guru Rob Snell recently presented on a panel at PubCon 2007, the WebMasterWorld convention. He graciously provided a copy of his presentation in PDF format for other merchants to read. And while there is no audio, and therefore you’re missing out on all the great Rob-isms (and a huge helping of his Southern gravy), merchants can still glean the most important points from just viewing the slides.

PubCon in Las Vegas is the show of the year for me. I dare say it's the best Internet marketing conference because of who speaks, what they say, how much they give away, and who attends. I love to "network" with some of the smartest retailers and Internet marketers on the planet, and being a speaker gets me on the guest list for some of the really cool parties, too!

Read this for a pretty good overview of my trip to DC, how I got invited, and the first half of my adventures in Washington...

Follow up article.

Here is the written testimony I gave to Congress. It's easy to read and has two excerpts from my DUMMIES book. (Thanks, Steve Hayes!)

Watch me read my written testimony to Congress. Read the script here or jump to the VIDEO 9 of the Q&A for the good stuff

Starting HERE with the first video, this'll walk you though all 19 videos. About 2 hours of fun!

"Rob, Thank you for your great ideas and quick response time. You took the worry and hassle out of an otherwise overwhelming project!" --Natalie Hayes, Baby Gift Idea.com

Google didn't testify at yesterday's U.S. House Small Business Committee hearing on online advertising, but the company was the star of the discussion anyhow. Among other topics, some committee members expressed concern that the recent search ad deal between Google and Yahoo could prompt a need for government regulation. At this point, however, the committee appears to be hesitant to take a regulatory route.

http://207.21.197.239/ystore/ystoreExport.asp

The US House of Representatives Small Business Committee Subcommittee on Regulations, Healthcare and Trade held a hearing to discuss the state of the online advertising industry for small businesses last week.

When you don't know what to give, giveanything!

Good Keywords Professional is a powerful software for managing your bids at various pay per click search engines like GoTo, Sprinks, etc. Use it to find the right bid words, research and optimize your bids and analyze your competition.

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel -- What do a hunting dog supply distributor, an online diamond retailer, and a home repair guru have in common? They were all up on Capitol Hill yesterday talking with lawmakers about the positive effects of online advertising on their small businesses.

This is my best site. It's our family owned business and I put everything I learn about Yahoo! Store back into this site. We just reworked the RTML templates and did a complete rewrite of some product pages, added content, and made some specialty templates. This store has been my testing ground since 1997, and I've learned a TON.

In today’s episode, I’m going to share how I spent less than thirty minutes optimizing a single product page which resulted in a 300% explosion in sales on that SKU, which rocked my world a little bit. It made me wonder what else I’m missing out on!

In this article, I'm going to show you all the different kinds of text content I create on our online stores, and give you tips on how you can leverage your product expertise into online profits.

"What's the lifetime value of the Retriev-R Trainer product page? When I studied Yahoo! Store manager's reports, they showed that this single Retriev-R Trainer product page had generated slightly over $100,000 in retail sales since April 1997, with around 55,000 pageviews. "

An interview about our ecommerce companies and why we chose Yahoo! Store...

Hi, Rob. I' ve been enjoying your blog. Also, I bought your Yahoo Dummies Book, great work.

AMAZON REVIEW: I've had a lot of experience with Yahoo stores and there is so much to know and learn when you open one. I bought this book and it was a tremendous help in keeping me on track and not letting me forget about important little tricks. I learned a lot of new things too - I would highly recommend this book to all new store owners, and current store owners who need a great place to start when designing and optimizing their Yahoo stores! Thanks Rob, and thanks Dummies for helping me open my site...

-- GARDENFUN.COM > Whimsical garden decor including Tree Art, Geeky Beaks, Nerdy Birds, and Springee Spinners.

Visit http://www.mclabs.com/facilities/Los_Angeles/ for directions, special hotel rates and recommendations.

This is a must-have secret weapon for every Netpreneur with a Yahoo! Store.

In 2004, our family business came off the tracks. Sales growth stopped. Overhead skyrocketed. We took a hard look at how we sold online, and made one simple, but substantial change. The result was an extra $10,354,767 in additional sales above our normal growth. How?

"Rob Snell loves e-commerce and all things Yahoo! Store. He is totally obsessed with search marketing and increasing his stores' conversion rates. He is a small business owner, online retailer, search marketing / e-commerce consultant, and Yahoo! Store developer. He's been online since 1990 and opened his first online store in 1997 when his brother stumbled across Viaweb (now Yahoo! Store)."

Rob Snell has extensive Yahoo Store experience with both family-owned stores and consulting clients. The Snell Brothers have designed, developed, marketed and/or maintained hundreds of Yahoo Store s that have generated millions and millions of dollars in online sales. He posts in his blog (http://ystore.blogs.com) on a regular basis. Rob was recently selected by Wiley Computer Publishing to write the book " Building a Yahoo Business For Dummies" which is scheduled to be released in March 2006. He has a degree in Graphic Design from Mississippi State University.

My new friend and fellow Yahoo! Store Developer Rob Snell was invited by a director at Yahoo! Small Business to testify in front of Congress at a hearing of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Small Business about Online Advertising. His preperation and written testimony was easy-to-read and Rob published it here at Search Engine Land. You should definitely read that first.

This is THE place for the latest word in how to get better placement in search engines. Tell 'em Ystore.com sent ya!

Danny Sullivan: "Rob Snell, likely the first search marketer to testify before the US Congress, has done his duty. He emailed me, "We ran over the alotted time by 15 minutes or so, but they let us keep talking." So I guess Congress likes SEM, they really like it. Below, you can watch a video of his testimony."

Rob Snell has an amazing search marketing and search engine optimization story. He recently testified before Congress about the impact that search marketing (both organic/natural - SEO and pay-per-click advertising) can have on small businesses. Of course, as an SEO company we are already aware of that, but it is great to see search marketing get some air time at such a high level.

Went Hot: June 25, 2008 - 7:35 am Posted By: robgarner 8 days ago
Rob Snell tells his incredible story of how he was asked to testify in a congressional hearing on the impact of the Internet on small business. 10 Comments

House Committee on Small Business, Subcommittee on Regulations, Health Care and Trade -- OFFICIAL HEARING SITE

This man is a genius. Read his books. Get his e-zine. Subscribe to his thought process. Your site should load fast and be EASY to use.

Rob Snell, author of Starting a Yahoo! Business for Dummies, talks about four steps in deciding what products to sell online. (1) Determine what is selling online, (2) have a strong interest in what you're selling, (3) determine the availability of product distribution, (4) determine if you can make money selling this product. He discusses a wide range of topics, including drop-shipping, and companies Tarapeak.com, Doba.com, and WorldWideBrands.com.

E-commerce expert Rob Snell offers three tips to help boost sales in an online store. (1) Make clear recommendations on products, take an editorial position to help customers make choices. (2) Put as much information as possible into product information, knowedge bases, etc. to increase SEO 'long tail' traffic and establish yourself as an expert. (3) Ask for a link to your site from anyone you send money to, since it's hard otherwise to get links to commercial online stores. If possible, get those links to product pages or sectional pages.

When someone queries a search engine for a keyword related to your site's products or services, does your page appear in the top 10 matches, or does your competition? This will help!

2009.10 Watch this hour-long webinar to "learn best practices to drive customers to your store through organic search engine optimization." (read the transcript in the next link)

In this week’s column, I’m going to cover the top mistakes I’ve seen many seasoned retailers make that have contributed to the impact of the Panda update on their stores, as well as how major algorithm shifts seem to expose the weaknesses of different methods of managing all this content, unique or otherwise.

Some of the studies may be a little dated, but it's good to find real usability research. Food for thought...

Half my age. 500% more sales. 'Nuff said... testimony here

I sleep well knowing this guy is representing our industry... testimony here

He works for the big boys and knows his stuff about online advertising -- testimony here

This is my mom's store... been in business since 1972

Tim is a super-nice guy who makes his living off his writing and videos... testimony here

Keyword Search Tool -- Discover the right keywords, and you'll see your traffic skyrocket!

If you need to map some of your order fields to QuickBooks, then you might be interested in this program the "Shopping Cart Assistant".

The "Shopping Cart Assistant" converts your Yahoo! Store order files into the proper format for importing your orders into QuickBooks using your Yahoo! Store and QuickBooks settings.

Unofficial. Unsanctioned. Highly-opinionated. You'll learn more here about about how to run an ecommerce company using the Yahoo! Store method than you want to know. The good, the bad and the ugly about all things Yahoo! Store and small business...

From the introduction: "All teasing aside, you really need to buy this book if you are serious about making more with your Yahoo! Store. It shows you over tips, tricks, tweaks, and templates to jazz up your store. You can do something with this info almost immediately, too! I was editing templates after about 30 minutes of diving into the book. "

2008.11 Here's audio for the hour I spent talking with Shawna Fennell about Yahoo! Web Analytics, and why merchants should be using this feature to collect and analyze their site data. I explain why analytics is an important part of your success and why this information will help your conversion rates.

2009.02 Email works. In this episode, I'm going to open the books and share some real $$$ numbers from the email marketing behind several real Yahoo! Stores. To keep me out of trouble, I will not reveal who owns the stores, what they sell, or their domains, to protect their proprietary information so I can show you the nitty gritty.

2006.08 The nice folks over at Wiley, publishers of the Dummies guides, have graciously provided a FREE chapter of "Starting a Yahoo! Business for Dummies."

2007.09 Long story, short? Links are important for Web traffic and for search engines. Every Yahoo! Store owner needs links, and an easy way to get free links is to ask your suppliers to link to you. A really good way to get a list of all your suppliers is to export all your accounts payable from QuickBooks (or whatever accounting software you use), and start shaking these folks down for some link love.

2008.03 Howdy! Let’s talk about SEO, specifically links and how to get more of them. It must be that time of the year again, because I’ve started my annual obsession with links. Links to your Yahoo! Store are more important than ever. You need links. Lots and lots of links. Beg, borrow, ---, barter, swap, sponsor — whatever it takes, get ‘em, you need links. Why? I’ll tell you...

2007.04 Search Engine Strategies 2007 New York is off the hook! I don’t see how anyone gets everything done! Most of the sessions I attended were wall-to-wall marketers. There are so many new folks interested in search marketing.

Read my latest guest post in the Official Yahoo! Store Blog about SMX Advanced (Seattle). The SEO classes were unbelievably valuable. Over the two full days I took well over 30 pages of notes in my little black Moleskine.

2009.06 Search Marketing Expo recap. SMX is one of Danny Sullivan's many search marketing shows. Speakers can dive off pretty deep into some pretty heavy topics without worrying about leaving the new folks behind. This show, like PUBCON, is for the heavy search geeks!

2006.09 Blog post on how to find your converting keywords and what to do with 'em...