Craig Rentmeester's Blog

Befriending a Blogger -- For PR Pros

Apparently Chris Anderson, had no effect, because for the past few months I have been getting news releases from PR professionals.

At first, I would open and quickly scan them to see if they had any useful ideas to write about. (Hey, it gets tough to keep coming up with great stuff). However, I never actually wrote about any of them because nine times out of ten the business wasn't original, and the spin factor was riding high. The other times there would be no relevance to the topics I write about.

It seems to me that the same people sending out e-mail news releases blindly to bloggers don't blog themselves, which puts them at a disadvantage.

How to be more successful when trying to get mentioned by a blogger
Below are some ways to become friends with a blogger, and will help you get your sh*t mentioned.

Don't Just (First) Name Drop. Mention more than the person's first name, such as a related post, or overriding theme you've noticed about the blogger.

Brag Them Up. Bloggers generally have egos. Butter them up by mentioning their book, e-book, videos, web site design, award(s), or work you've seen outside their blog. 

Comment First. Send Second. Bloggers have opinions. That's why they have a blog. Agree or disagree with them. Expand on their posts. Join the conversation first, before sending one-sided communication.

Provide exclusive information or media. Invite them on a private tour of the factory where you divulge secrets about the company.

Create something exclusive for the blogger. If they have a sense of humor, put their face on something goofy. Feature them in a video. Most bloggers won't get uptight.

And you Thought...

there aren't creative ways to make money.

How I Quickly Built an e-commerce Site

As I mentioned in my previous post, the goal of this post is to inspire you to take a calculated risk and build a Web site you've thought about, but ‘haven’t found the time to build’. This post is describing a recent project I took on with my Dad.

Background

We needed a quick and dirty e-commerce site to showcase 50-60 scooter parts that my Dad has available for sale that fit various brands of scooters, primarily made by Dayang, Honda and Yamaha. 

Below you’ll learn about how I got started, the tools I used, and how I influenced search engine rankings by implementing proper on-page SEO items.

Please forgive my grammar, as I am writing this piece for speed as well. I'm hoping to edit it later on.

 

Built for Speed

Since this project wasn’t billable, and it’s not planned to be a long-term business, I tried to cut corners when possible. Also, scooters and mopeds are seasonal by nature, so finishing the site to allow for earlier rankings eased my fears about using shortcuts.

Buying a Good Domain

I bought the domain at the end of March for this site. Before buying it, I used five tools to help me compare search data. 

The five tools I used were:

1. Google’s Traffic Estimator

2. Adwords Keyword Tool

3. Free Keyword Research from Trellian

4. Keyword Difficulty from SEOChat

5. Keyword Difficulty Tool from seologs

To be able to compare the data quick and effectively, I set up an Excel spreadsheet with search data in columns and the corresponding search term in rows from the five data sources. I recommend this for both SEO research and keyword-based campaign research. It allows me to scan quickly for keyword opportunities. 

Using this data, and keeping in mind commonalities of the Web site content I was going to publish, I decided on MopedandScooterParts.com, which I was surprised was available.

Creating Content

To start, I got pictures of each part using a digital camera, with each part featured on a white bed sheet for easy editing in Photoshop. 

With the images, I also received corresponding descriptions and prices for each part.

Once I had this information, I had 80-90 percent of the Web site content. Now, it just need to be coded.

 

Payments

To save time, I decided to use PayPal for the shopping cart function. For this site, the transaction fees are reasonable (1.9% of the sale price + .20 cents per transaction).

 

Hosting

I already had Web hosting through Dreamhost, which is cheap, at $97 per year. (dreamhost affiliate link). Also, since I had the hosting package, Dreamhost allowed me to purchase a domain for free for the first year ($10 savings).

 

Software Used

I used Photoshop for deleting background noise from images of the parts for sale, and Dreamweaver for HTML/CSS coding.

I also used Dreamhost’s built-in HTML editor for minor HTML tweaks along the way.

 

Web site Building tools Used

I used CSSEZ to help me create a base model for the CSS stylesheet. It was tweaked slightly, but about 80% of the work creating the CSS was done in a WYSIWYG environment versus a coding environment, which allowed me to work much faster. (see CSSEZ version and the final version).Contrary to what this site states, these CSS you create can be used without WordPress or MoveableType.

I used HTML Playground for a reference when I forgot some HTML/CSS lingo. 

I used XML Sitemaps to help me create a quick and dirty sitemap in HTML and XML. It took some minor tweaking to the code to make the HTML Sitemap respectable. This tool saved me a ton of time, though.

I used FormLogix web forms since I don’t know MySQL, but wanted to grow an e-mail newsletter subscription list. Now, it seems that FormLogix puts Google Ads on pages where its forms are used, which is lame and a deterrent. When I created mine, they didn't do this.
 

How the site ranks

Right now, the site ranks in positions 1-3 on both Yahoo! and Google for phrases including the word Dayang and the name of a specific part we have for sale, which is roughly 60-70 percent of the content. (sample search 1, sample search 2, sample search 3).

 

How Did I Achieve Strong Search Rankings?

Right now, the site doesn’t have many in-bound links, which certainly is not helping it for difficult keyword phrases. However, one thing working in my favor on this project is that there aren’t many online content providers for after-market Dayang Scooter Parts.
 

Also, each page of the site has a strong focus on targeted keywords. Keywords for each page are included in the: 

• Page Title
• Directory Name (so they appear in the URL)
• Header Tags
• The site description and Domain contain targeted keywords
• Meta Data (descriptions and keywords)
• Anchor Text
• Image File Names, Alternate Tags and Titles

 

Other Tools

Google Analytics – monitor site traffic, usage, referring sites, etc.

Google Webmaster – monitor search rankings, inbound links found by Google, upload a sitemap, etc.

Yahoo! Site Explorer – to check competitor’s links and my links.

 

Some More Things to Consider when Building or Redesigning a Web site

1. Information Architecture – This didn’t really apply for this site because there was only going to be around 60 pages. However, breaking content into clear classifications that allow for search engine indexability and navigation is critically important with larger sites (250+ pages).
2. Link structure – This also wasn’t that important due to the limited number of pages. Since no one item is extremely preferable to sell than another, I tried to keep the link architecture as evenly weighted as possible. However, if you want to rank in a competitive market and you don’t emphasize the pages you’re hoping to rank via extra internal links, you’ll have trouble.
3. CSS vs. tables. – If you use a Web design firm and they build your site using nested tables, you’ll have bigger maintenance bills, more search engine concerns and slower load times.  
   

Future Plans

In case you’re interested with how I plan to proceed going forward, I listed a few measures I plan to take below.

I plan to build a Squidoo page about Dayang scooters, because there is not a lot information about them. Squidoo has a high PageRank, and providing relevant content will help us pick up some link juice. Hopefully the lens will pickup and refer some traffic as well.

I hope that we can post PDF versions of various scooter owners’ manuals.

I will be analyzing existing competitors Web sites for opportunities to pick up links from the same sources. 

Depending on the time it takes to implement, I may add a Google Checkout option in combination with an AdWords account. For now, we’ll see how PayPal works out.

If you have any questions about something I left out, please e-mail me.  

For additional site-building and SEO Help

Download my on-page SEO e-book to help you improve your Web site’s rankings.

Coming Soon: How I built a 60+ page E-commerce Web site in under 40 Hours

As you may have noticed, I recently added a sidebar banner advertisement to my blog about a Web site called Moped and Scooter Parts.

It's a project I was working on the past few weeks (which has kept me from blogging).

It's somewhat of a joint venture involving my Dad and me.

I plan to put together a report that outlines:

• what tools and resources I used to built this Web site in under 40 hours
• how it ranks in the top 10 search results for most relevant keyword phrases,
• miscellaneous details about the web hosting service I am using, software used, costs, etc.
• other useful tips about Web site building. 

I'm hoping it will help inspire others that haven't 'found the time' to build a Web site they've thought about.

Look for it next week.

Surprising Search Results

Just now I wanted to find out what the most up-to-date odds were for Big Brown to win the Belmont Stakes.

So, I searched "Belmont Stakes Odds". The surprising thing is that no gambling sites have search campaigns including that search phrase. It's three hours before the race.

Seems like a missed opportunity.

Click the image on the right for larger screenshot.

By the way, he's a 2-to-5 favorite -- meaning you'd have to bet $500 to win $200.

Enjoy the race.

Tiered Search Bidding

As any salesperson will tell you, there's nothing like a warm lead; someone that has the money budgeted, and is looking to buy soon.

In most B2B marketing roles, the core responsibility is to generate and capture demand for products and services. To my knowledge, there is no better avenue to capture demand than via search advertising.

It's a win-win. Citizens are looking specific goods/services and businesses pay an nominal to get their 15 word message in front of them when they're in the buying cycle.

As such, I recommend that everyone implement tiered search bidding.

Of course, the internet can help you at different stages of the buying process, from basic product awareness to product trial. But, adoption is ultimately what counts.

So, the next SEM campaign you run, attach phrases like quote, purchase and buy to each of your keywords and bid higher for those words. I like to call it tiered search bidding, whereby I have three bid sets; the lowest amount for generic, industry-wide product terms, a medium amount for product-specific terms and most for product-specific terms with buying words.

If you see good or bad results with this technique, let me know via e-mail at craigrentmeester at gmail dot com. I'm interested to see if this works in other industries.

comScore releases April search data

Google keeps stealing market share, even though search queries were down slightly in April.

See the full report.

Great Riff on SEO Shortcomings by Web Design and IT Professionals

Here's an interesting rant from Mark Jackson at Search Engine Watch.

I have been thinking this for a while and agree with his points about web design and IT professionals short-changing companies when it comes to doing 'SEO' work.

5 Ways to Reward Good Profitable Behavior

It amazes me when companies reach out more to new customers, with special perks and discounts, than their best existing customers.

As such, I thought I'd pass along some ways, in both the online and offline worlds of business, to reward your customers for good profitable behavior.

Here are five things I came up with.

Online

• Free shipping for a year for ordering more than X amount of  dollars the previous year.
• Develop a points-based rewards program in an industry that doesn't normally have one.
  
  • Example - Hallmark Gold Crown Points

Offline

• Special shopping hours. Imagine walking into an uncrowded store on Black Friday evening, after all the smoke has cleared, with all of  your targeted merchandise on hand.

• A convenience-based, headache releiving reward that doesn't exist for first-timers.

• Advance rain checks for your best customers on Black Friday merchandise. Tee times outside the normal range, reservations at restaurant that doesn't take them.

Both Online and Offline

• Exclusive benefits for purchasing X amount of goods or paying a membership fee.
  

• Advance downloads, access to limited edition products, signed memorabilia, etc.
• Example - Dave Matthews' Warehouse membership

The key with these types of rewards is to make them great so that your best customers tell their friends, and low frequency customers start buying more often because of the rewards for doing so are so enticing.

Impressive

37Signals points out this fascinating video. Check it out.

You don't need big budgets to create something entertaining and remarkable.