5 SEO Tips for eCommerce Sites

http://www.promotionworld.com/se/articles/article/101110-5%20SEO-Tips-eCommerce-Sites

by Danielle Sharpe
November 10, 2010

The sites which are sales-based or eCommerce sites really see Search Engine Optimization (SEO) into action in terms of Return on Investment (ROI). Even a little tweak can increase the sales tremendously:

1. Multiple Categorizations

Most of the eCommerce sites follow 'filing cabinet' approach; that means that every product is ascribed to only one category. However, in actuality one product can also fall into more than one category. For example, lingerie is a product that can fall into different categories like 'Baby doll nightgown', 'Basque', and 'Bustier'.

Most probably, you have been using 'sort by' choices to sort your products. What is recommended is to do these categories from their own landing pages. You have to see that each of those categories is linked to, using a clear HTML anchor text link.

2. The First Link

Several tests conducted by SEO professionals have proven that even if you link one page two or more times from any page, Google and many of the other major search engines would count only the first link.

Generally we see in a website that first there is the image of the product with the link to the product or sub-categories, and then description of that product with the same link placed again. For Search Engine it would be the only first link (which is usually in image) that really counts.

If your website has the same problem, you can fix it by placing the description and link, before the image. Alternatively, you can remove the link from the image, and let it be only with the description.

3. Keywords- Singular or plural

Logically the title for a page should be plural. However unfortunately, people tend to enter the singular version of the keyword, when they search it through search engines. Now if your website is optimized for the title which is plural, you will lose much of the traffic. The work around for this problem is to design the title of a phrase (which would be keyword optimized) using both singular and plural form of the keyword. For example, you can do something like this:

"Navigation gadgets: Buy your Navigation Gadget at mywebsite.com"

Changing a single line can double the traffic to your website.

4. Regularly freshening up of your pages

If you don't update your pages regularly, search engines might take that page to be dead. Therefore, keep updating your page(s) regularly to tell search engines that the pages are alive. This should not be taken lightly. With Real Time Search becoming the latest trend, and Google algorithms continually change to incorporate a system to check for freshness of pages as well; it becomes crucial, that you regularly freshen up your pages.

Question may arise, how you can keep updating your pages regularly for your eCommerce sites. You can follow these simple tips to do that:

•Include user reviews for your products in your pages.

•If you haven't done already, include a blog on your site. Categorize the posts nicely, and feed them into category pages to include some lines from the most new posts. It might take some time to implement but the efforts would be worth it; you would have your pages updated and fresh every time you write a relevant post.

•To set yourself apart from your competitors, regularly review and change the copy on the category and product pages. It is not only keeping your pages fresh, but would result in ranking boost.

5. Links to Deeper Pages

Continuing SEO campaigns can turn into never-ending battles in no time trying to govern those 'keywords' which brings more traffic. Most of the time companies spend so much time and resource for competitive keywords, that they almost ignore tail phrases, for instance, product names. To make it more clear we take an example; You are selling a LCD TV of myBrand company, and its product name, for instance is "myBrand RFG--40x3500 LCD TV".

You obviously would get more traffic to your site from the keyword "myBrand LCD TV", but as a matter of fact, but traffic which comes with "myBrand RFG--40x3500 LCD TV" has higher conversion rates. They can be ranked much easily with only a few inbound links.

TO gain an edge over your competitors, don't only compete for those glamorous keywords, but also invest considerable resources for link building of some deeper pages on the website. You will see your sale increasing a lot with this small change of focusing on deeper pages and links.

We hope that above 5 SEO tips for eCommerce sites would bring a little value to your efforts for SEO.A small change goes a long way; so try incorporating these small changes and see how they help you in not just attracting more traffic, but also making more profit..

3 Free Personal Finance Apps You Can Take to the Bank

http://www.linuxinsider.com/alert/71199.html

By Jack M. Germain
LinuxInsider
11/10/10 5:00 AM PT

Whether you need to manage the accounts of a small business or those of your own household, open source applications have you covered multiple times over. GnuCash is an app serious book-keepers will appreciate; HomeBank is a comprehensive personal account manager; and Skrooge presents an attractive and inviting user interface.

The Linux platform has several really good financial applications that are more than capable of handling both personal and small-business accounting operations.

GnuCash, HomeBank and Skrooge are among the best financial apps I've found for Linux. In terns of features and performance, all three are as good as or better than the well-known Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows equivalents -- MSMoney and Quicken.

But features and performance aside, these three Linux apps have a striking advantage over their proprietary kindred. The Linux programs, being open source, are free. That means I can run them on my various desktop and laptop computers all for the same great price -- $0.

Good Option

For my money -- if open source was not free, that is -- any one of these Linux financial apps fits my needs better than their Windows counterparts. Nothing I did using Windows wares escapes me in Linux.

For a while after I made the leap from Windows to Linux, I relied on AceMoney, a personal finance product that has a fairly full feature set. I even gave in and paid the upgrade fee to add the ability to maintain multiple bank accounts. AceMoney is not open source.

It also is not a real Linux app. I had to run it under WINE, an open source implementation of the Windows API.

MSMoney and Quicken do not run under WINE. But they do, as does AceMoney, export their data to a form that GnuCash, Homebank and Skrooge can use. So if you're already using those programs and you want to make a switch, you do not have to start from scratch to begin using them.

Cash In With GNU

GnuCash is probably the top of app a real accountant would relish. It is a powerhouse personal and small-business finance manager. But it comes with the steepest learning curve of the three packages.

GnuCash

It is a double-entry accounting system. If all you want is an app to ride herd on your bank accounts, using GnuCash could be overkill.

Still, it will do that and a whole lot more. GnuCash tracks budgets and maintains various accounts in numerous category types. It has a full suite of standard and customizable reports.

It is an ideal crossover app, licensed under the GNU GPL. It has versions for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

Content Driven

GnuCash has the look and feel of a check-book register. Its GUI (graphical user interface) is designed for easy entry and tracking of bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses.

That said, if you do not have an appreciation for formal accounting principles, make sure you spend considerable time boning up on the documentation. GnuCash is designed to be simple and easy to use but is based on formal accounting principles.

When the counting gets beyond my fingers and toes, my eyes gloss over. The program got easier to use once I imported the files and finished the account setup. But double-entry accounting is not my comfort zone.

Feature Highlights

Here is the short version of what a double-entry system entails. All transactions must debit one account and credit others by an equal amount.

This process ensures that the books balance, according to GnuCash's documentation. Making sure that the difference between income and outflow exactly equals the sum of all assets and equity is a standard that exceeds my needs.

For business finances, though, GnuCash offers key features. For instance, it handles reports and graphs as well as scheduled transactions and financial calculations. If you run a small business, this app will track your customers, vendors, jobs, invoices and more.

Feeling at Home

Compared to GnuCash, HomeBank is a much easier personal accounting system to use. Its roots go back to the 1995 Amiga computers. It is available in 50 languages on GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

HomeBank

Unlike other financial software, HomeBank does not connect to your bank's computer to carry out transactions. This means it cannot update banking records in real time.

For me, that is not an issue. I disabled that feature in other financial software I used. I much prefer to pay bills and make money transfers through a secure browser connection manually.

The several banks I use only update daily records after midnight. So even if I use the banks' online banking direct connections, I will not see real-time account status.

Other Tasks

I want a banking app that lets me track deposits and transfers and helps me spot where I spend my money. HomeBank's pie charts and graphs do that and more with ease.

HomeBank is much more than a simple ledger program. It uses categories and tags to organize transactions. Plus, this app handles multiple checking and savings accounts.

It also makes it simple to schedule recurring transactions. Banks and credit bureaus are now much less forgiving on late payments. One sure way to avoid last-minute payment anxiety is to let HomeBank remind you when to pay a bill.

Uncle Skrooge

Skrooge reminds me of Quicken with its dashboard-style GUI. Perhaps it is its appearance that makes this app my favorite.

Skrooge

It looks less like a banking ledger. The design is much more user-friendly. I find it much less intimidating.

This app is powered by the KDE4 desktop environment. I generally do not like the screen changes KDE4 brought about; thus I now favor the Gnome desktop. But Skrooge runs seamlessly under Gnome because the needed KDE libraries are installed as part of the Skrooge package.

Better View

For example, the app window is divided into banking components that make more sense than a traditional ledger view. I can see the bank's name, account and transaction details in clearly discernible windows.

Other details such as reports and filters appear in view as I click different windows and icons around the viewing screen. The size of the app window expands or collapses to reflect the real estate needed by the selected features.

The KDE underpinning lets Skrooge run on various Linux distros, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X. Skrooge is part of KDE Extragear and is released under the GPLv3 license

Novel Interface

I particularly like Skrooge's interface. Its colorful panels and icons take the dreariness out of banking chores.

Even better is the tab structure. Each task -- such as filtered reports, ledger entry and dashboard -- remains open as a tab line up along the top of the viewing windows under the menu and tool bar rows.

So at any given time in a banking work session, I can click an open tab to again look at the Dashboard, Income vs. Expenditure report, various pie categories, etc.

The dashboard itself is an unusual aspect of financial apps. Most do not have one. The dashboard component in this app shows the account balance per bank.

More Cool Stuff

Skrooge has the expected features and more. For instance, it can import/export files in formats for QIF, CSV, KMYMONEY, OFX, QFX, GnuCash, Grisbi and HomeBank. It has an easy-to-use scheduling tool.

But it also goes where the other financial apps don't. For example, Skrooge has infinite category levels and multiple update of operations. It also has infinite undo/redo options which are still active after the file closes.

A feature that I find very useful is the ability to track refunds of my expenses. It also has one that I wish I could put to more use: It handles multiple currencies.