index

Tweeting

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:48:54 +0100

I fixed up my twitter page a little today and I used a service to find people on twitter using keywords that match my store: http://twitseeker.com/ I will spend more time making my twitter page so that when people start following me it will look a bit more polished. Right now I am signing up at http://www.tweetlater.com to create an automatic message to those that are following me to draw a little more attention to my store. There is so much marketing you can do on Twitter and the more you put in the more you get out. Tweetlater has a lot of information so later I will put more features on my twitter and then report them back here.

TheFind.com and Upfront merchant

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:27:22 +0100

Added my store to the TheFind.com. TheFind.com is a shopping search engine.

You can add your store to TheFind.com here: http://www.thefind.com/main/AddMerchant.fhtml

You have to put an Upfront button on your homepage which displays all the important information, policies and payments accepted at your store.

Read about UpFront here: http://www.thefind.com/upfront

Backlinks this weekend - Adwords today

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:21:38 +0100

Busy busy with my "real" job. I will figure out and report the backlinks this weekend hopefully.
Today I set up a Google Adwords campaign. Even those of us with little budgets for advertising can do this because you specify how much you are willing to spend and how much you are willing to pay for each click. I set up very small spending limit (15.00). I will see how well it works out.

Basically you sign up, create an add and enter keywords you want to place your ads on and that is pretty much it. You can have as many keywords as you want but better to focus on important keywords to your site. You don't want to pay for a "click" which does not bring the correct type of traffic to your site. You can also have negative keywords. They have an entire learning center:
http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

Spiffed up the blog a bit and learning backlinks

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:46:29 +0100

Backlinks are my real goal right now. They are ways to drive traffic and apparently very effective but it is not a simple thing. I want to get a better handle on it before I try it and post it here. Hopefully tomorrow.

Today I added a link to 30 sample items I sell in my store. Once I get backlinks working this will be helpful to give people an idea of what I sell and hopefully will convert into some traffic and then sales.

I also added a place to leave comments on this blog. This is needed for backlinks so I at least accomplished that. To leave a comment you have to click on the header of any of my blog entries and the comment box will display. Not an effective way to do this but it is the best this blog site has.

Google Local Business Center

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:36:18 +0100

Today I added my website to the google local business center:
http://www.google.com/local/add/analyticsSplashPage?gl=US&hl=en-US

I lowered my shipping on quite a few items. I find I make that up by selling more quantity, it really works.

I changed some of my pictures. I shoot all of my pictures with a white background, it makes a huge difference.

I took new pictures of a few items that seemed to drop in sales recently.

building new shelves in the garage to reorganize. Everything to get ready for Christmas. Last year we had a HUGE Chrismas with our online sales. With the increase in business since then, we definitely need to streamline anything we can before the season starts.

We are hiring our 16 year old daughter. Paying her minimum wage and hopefully she will enjoy the extra money. I know we will enjoy the extra help.

Converting Sales from Ebay to your own website

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:25:27 +0100

I did this about a week ago and I just converted a 130.00 order from Ebay to my FloridaGiftsOnline.com store.

I signed up for a domain on GoDaddy.com and I created a descriptive email Customer.Service@FloridaGiftsOnline.com

While you are not allowed to advertise your personal website on Ebay you are allowed to post your email address. So I added my email address (in BIG print) on my store home page.

I dont' even have to check that email address. In my regular gmail email account I set up the automatic mail forwarding which GoDaddy.com allows.

Also I mentioned that every day I would do something to promote my website. Check back everyday for a new tip to try although keep in mind I have absolutely NO CLUE what I am doing, I just decided one step forward everyday. Today I added my website here:

http://www.entireweb.com/free_submission/

I didn't do too much today, it is Saturday, having friends over to play cards and I am again watching baseball, bottom of the 12th and my Rays are up by one! Baked cookies too, Gooey butter chocolate (love that Paula Deen)

Cool HTML Code

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:29:28 +0100

Ok, so how can code be cool? I have no idea but if you are working on a website, you can really get into this stuff.

Now before I put what the cool code is that I learned I want to explain VERY BRIEFLY why I am working on a Friday night. Well I am on a laptop watching baseball which I love love love. I am a Tampa Bay Rays fan and if you are a baseball fan at all or just have a TV or a radio then you know what happened to my St. Pete 9 yesterday. I am still shook by it so I can't just watch the game with undivided attention (that and I already said I have a touch of ADD, just more proof). I am also not posting it here as it is already in the record books for all of eternity. I am just letting you know so you are scared off by my blog thinking what a geek! Nope, just a shaken baseball fan. No worries tonight though, we already have 2 runs in the book and one walk to boot! WHEW!

Ok, on to the code. I had a link to my twitter page and this blog on my website but when you clicked on it it took you off my web page to the link. Of course if you have a website you don't want to redirect anyone off your website so with a little help from my friends at BISI community site and my old friend Google, I got it to work.

HREF=http://www.yourdomain.com TARGET="_blank">Your Text</a>

Try it here and you will get my Twitter page. Go ahead and join if you want although I already explained I am not too sure yet what to do with it. LOL

Twitter

Getting started

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:03:14 +0100

So much to learn, so much to do! I know why people get paid a lot of money to manage, customize and promote websites. There is just a ton out there to absorb.

If I can do it anyone can do it. I have a full time job, 2 teenagers, a dog and 3 cats!

Don't mistake that I am doing it right but I am doing it. I try to make progress every day. It is like losing weight, when I get more sales or even traffic in my store I am excited to do more work and learn something new.

I maintain (LOL) a website at FloridaGiftsOnline.com. I also have a store on *bay and on the River. I decided to open my own website not only so I have control over the content and policies but just for the satisfaction of doing it. I love a puzzle (well not crossword puzzles but I do love Sudoku). Also they say it is good for your brain to learn new things.

I read a ton of message boards and I learn so much from them. On a great day, I have something useful to add.

I heard that Twitter was a good idea so I opened a twitter page: twitter.com/floridagifts
I'm not too sure about Twitter yet but it was my "progress for the day" a few days ago. Once I marked it off my list I moved on (ok, I have a touch of ADD too). I figured I would learn more about that later, figure out something to twitter about. Don't let my teenagers find out I said that, I am already "so lame". If they even knew I had a Twitter page I would probably never hear the end of it. Well I opened my email this morning and a customer asked me for my twitter name! Wow, how exciting is that? So I decided to mark 'Blog' off my list today.

I'm not dedicating this blog to anything in particular. I hope to update the tips I am learning on my website. Surely there is someone else out there trying to figure this all out right?

Other days I will probably steam off about some other "adventure" my teens took me on. They are on vacation until school starts so no "adventures" right now. Just to warn you, "adventures" are not always good, or humorous (at least not to me, other parents of teens may get a hoot out of my teens "adventure").

Here is something else I accomplished today. I submitted my site to
Yahoo:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

and Bing:
http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx

I read it was a good thing and I always like a good thing so maybe it will be good?

For a couple of days I have been updating my SEO - I read that meant Search Engine Optimization. Ya...

I have over 300 items in my store so I got bored with this after 10 items but I will keep at it.

Here is SEO in English. On my website which is hosted by buyitsellit on each product page I have a tab titled "SEO" By the way there is a main SEO section but I did that awhile back so I don't have that info here but I could definitely get it to you if you need help (my kind of help, nothing expert).

On the SEO tab there are 3 sections: Page Title, Keywords and Description.

I figured out that whatever you type under Page Title is what will show on the tab when someone opens the product in your store. If you don't type something in there, the page will default to what you entered in your Main SEO. For real, this is not complicated. What I did was copied my product title in this field. Then I went to my store, clicked on the item and I could see that the tab displayed my item name. Pretty cool! Of course I was fine with it the other way but for some reason you should do this, but don't ask me why, I really don't know.

The Keywords are words that people most search on and will return your product. Here is a cool tool that will help you find keywords:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal#groupAnchor_webpageTool_10

It's from Google so it has to be good right? Everyone uses Google to search.

Description? I have no idea why you fill this out, I just did it (like a lemming).

Then I saved my product page and I went to another cool tool (officially called a Meta Tag Analyzer) which looks at your product and tells you how to better set it up for a search engine to find it. It gives you a green light or red light. I just make changes, then analyze until I see a green light.

http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html

I have so much more on my list. Yesterday I tried to make a Logo. I read about a good logo maker site which was free called Xheader: http://xheader.com/
I made the logo but come to find out, I am looking for a banner, not a logo. How does one ever figure all of this out? A logo would go on each page and a banner goes on my homepage. So I added my new banner and it was HUGE! laziness kicked in and I moved on to something else LOL Then I found a reference to PixResizer (do a search as it is a free download and found in a lot of places) which will help me resize it. I have PictureIt but no matter what size I changed it to it was HUGE on my website home page. I'll get back to this.

So I think I will go Tweet that I now have a blog. I wonder how many people will follow this? Sort of exciting and odd at the same time.

Websites and Discounts

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:02:08 +0100

Website: FloridaGiftsOnline.com

Coupon Codes
If you have a discount code and would like to have it listed just email it and I will be happy to add it.

FloridaGiftsOnline: Use Code FG for 10% off all merchandise through 12/31/09