Link Building Strategies: Tapping Your Suppliers for a Fresh Supply of In-bound Links

Today’s Y!Store blog is another guest column by long-time Yahoo! Store owner and developer Rob Snell of Snell Brothers, still located in sleepy Starkville, Mississippi. Rob blogs about Yahoo! Store, speaks at search conferences about Yahoo! Store, is the author of a new book on Yahoo! Store: Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies, and is about to turn 40 later this month.

Howdy! Just back from speaking at 2007 Search Engine Strategies in San Jose. I did site reviews and we all had a good time! I even got to review a Yahoo! Store or two: Wedding Favors from American Bridal.

In the middle of a site review I was picking on one site that needed some links, so I tossed out Store SEO Tip #79, “How to Get Free Links from your Suppliers.” A little later, Paul asked me to go into a little more detail in a guest blog post, so here goes…

Links are important (well, duh!)

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.

OK. Links are really, really important to your Yahoo! Store because:

• Links get your store some foot traffic. Other Web sites send human visitors (a.k.a potential customers) to your Yahoo! Store.
• Links get your store pages in the search engines’ databases. When your Yahoo! Store gets a link from a page the search engines already know about, a search engine spider follows that link, crawls and indexes your page, and then follows any links on your page to the next page. And it happens over and over again.
• Links count as votes for your store. Search engines count up all the pages that link to your Yahoo! Store. The more relevant, high-quality links you have, the more important you are to the search engines.

Warning: If you don’t have any links, you don’t get traffic from other sites, you don’t get spidered or indexed by the search engines, and you don’t get free traffic from the search engines because your site must not be important if no one links to you…

Nowadays, most of the search engines place more weight on your reputation with others than on what you have to say about what your page is about. Pretty smart, folks…

Okay, so now you know you need links. Even before finishing this post, I know I’ll get an email from Tom from Surf City, CA, asking “Who do you get links from? What kind of links do you want? How can I get these links?” Well, Tom, great questions as always…

You want what some folks call organic or natural links. These links are from Web sites, somehow related to your site, who would link to your store as a resource for their visitors, without taking into consideration search engine benefits of a link.

Vendor links: An easy way to get free links

Almost every Yahoo! Store owner I know knows they need links, but they don’t know how to get them. One of the easiest ways I’ve found to get free, on-topic, relevant links to your Yahoo! Store is to ask all your vendors for back links. Every month you send money to all these folks. They should do you the small favor of linking to your Yahoo! Store.

Like my momma always says, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get,” so let’s start asking!

Looking at QuickBooks, I have 127 different organizations that our retail company sent money to last year that I think I can shake down, I mean, respectfully ask for some links. I chunk these folks into one of four buckets:

• Product Suppliers: Most of our checks went for “purchases” to product-related vendors like wholesale suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, drop-shippers, book publishers, dog experts/authors, etc. If you’re even halfway on your game, you probably have some links from these folks, but you need to make sure you have all the links you can get! See if they’ll link to the product page or section page rather than the home page. Also, see if they’ll use keyword rich anchor text in the link, like “oversized red widgets from YourCompanyNameHere.com” rather than “YourCompanyNameHere.com”
• Marketing Vendors: The next big group of vendors by $$$ was made up of marketing vendors including magazine publishers, Web site owners, advertising networks, email marketing lists, and so on. You’re buying traffic from these folks, but it doesn’t hurt to ask for (more) links.
• Service Providers: The third group was service providers like Web hosting, e-commerce services, e-mail services, online software, and consulting. Most of these folks have thousands of clients and are “too big” to link to you, but there are some other ways to get links! The best way I’ve found is to write testimonials for these folks or participate in case studies (which works wonders). I won’t sell out for a link, but if I truly believe in a vendor, I’ll write a killer testimonial and snag me a good link…
• Other Vendors: The last group of vendors are folks you don’t spend a lot of money on, but you could if you wanted to! On this list are organizations you support through subscriptions, dues, donations, and membership fees. This is probably your best bet for links you don’t already have. These non-profit groups need your support though cash and/or product donations. I have literally gotten hundreds and hundreds of relatively cheap or free back links. Do not underestimate these sponsorship opportunities.

WARNING: The following may be extremely difficult for big, broad brushstroke folks like myself. This is the part that truly makes my head hurt. It’s tedious and can be mind-numbingly boring. If you’re not a details-oriented person, you might need to delegate this to someone who is.

Make an Excel Spreadsheet

I open up Microsoft Excel and create the following columns:Vendor Name, $ Spent, Web Site URL, Links Page URL, Dealers Page URL, Links to Me?, Vendor Contact, Vendor Email, Date of Request, Best Relationship, Notes

First, eliminate folks you know won’t link to you. You probably won’t get a back link from Uncle Sam, or the electric department, or VISA, or Yahoo! Search Marketing, Google Adwords, or your state sales tax collector, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Sort by $$$ Spent last year. Especially with product vendors, how much you spend shows how important the product line is to your Yahoo! Store. And the more you spend, the more leverage you have with that vendor.

Organize your vendors by bucket. I use the Notes field to tag all my product vendors first, and then tag the others as Marketing, Services, or Other.

Start with your product suppliers. Product folks are likely to have a Web page, likely to have a “resources” page if not a dealers/buy online page. Since they’re always adding new products, these folks are also more likely to have a Webmaster on staff. The cool thing about getting links because you sell a certain product is that sometimes you can get two links for the same product: a link from the manufacturer’s dealers page and a link from your distributor’s page. Sweet!

Find each vendors’ Web site. Grab the URL, see if they have a links page or a dealers page. Make sure they don’t already link to you! Nothing more embarrassing than asking for a link you already have.

NOTE: You probably know your top 10 manufacturers’ domains by heart, but when you start seeing how many of your vendors and manufacturers don’t have a Web site (or have a site last updated circa 1997), you’ll swear you’re on the cutting edge of Internet marketing.

Once you have all your vendor information, then it’s time to plan your link request attack!

Prioritize your link requests. Start with links that are easier to get. You’ll get so excited about getting your first links, and that will give you the patience to make it though the long slow, agonizing process that is a link building campaign…

Ask yourself these questions: Does the vendor even have a Web site? If so, does the vendor link to dealers (like your competitors)? Does the vendor have a links page? Does it look like the vendor updates their Web site often?

Figure out who SHOULD ask for a link (at your company) and who TO ask for a link (at the vendor). Who in your company has the best relationship with your vendor? Usually it’s the person who deals with them on a day-to-day basis, either the owner or the buyer. Honestly, a vendor’s salesperson is your best friend in motivating the vendor’s Web guy to hurry up and link to you. Be nice, but firm! Put the squeeze on if you have to. You must have that link!

Know what you want and ask for it. Specificity here is a plus. Make life easy for your vendors. Tell them the URL of the page you want a link from, the URL you want the vendor to link to, and provide them with whatever text, logos, or other information they need to make your link look like everyone else’s link. Sometimes phone calls to your sales rep are better than email requests, but email is better for all the gory details.

Sometimes the link will just be your URL or domain name. Sometimes the link will be your business name. Sometimes the link will be some version of your logo. Have multiple sizes available if they ask. Make it easy for the vendor’s Web monkey to link to you:

Frank — Howdy! Thanks for getting that last order out so fast. Quick question: Can we get a link on your dealers page at http://www.vendorsdomain.com/dealers.asp ?

And can y’all link to my page at http://www.mystoredomain/vendor.html? I noticed you use dealer logos and there’s a pretty good version of my logo here:
http://www.mystoredomain/lib/myaccountname/logo.gif — Thanks and hope to see y’all in Vegas for Pubcon! — Rob

Remember to say thank you. Once you get that link, remember to say thank you. A little “happy” in the mail is a great way to show how much you care, too.

Links are important for both free qualified traffic to your online store and for good SEO. SEO is always changing, but it’s a zero sum game: There are only 10 Web pages listed on the first page of search results. Your competition is always chewing on you, and trying to steal your biscuit. One of the best ways you can fight back is by making sure that you have all the links you can possibly have. Asking the folks you pay month in and month out to link you is a pretty easy way to get some good (and free) back links!

Please reply to this post with your link stories and ideas on how to get more links!

Rob Snell–Somewhere in rural Mississippi
guest blogger for Yahoo! Small Business

Yahoo! Stores Auto-Authorize for Submission to Yahoo! Site Explorer

The major search engines all have tools that help website owners inform them of all current site pages and any updates to those pages. Since last year, we’ve enabled users to submit their sites using a standard format. Now we’re making it even easier to submit sites to Yahoo! Site Explorer, the site submission tool for Yahoo! Search.

Previously, the process of submitting a Yahoo! Merchant Solutions site to Yahoo! Site Explorer required users to register with Yahoo! Site Explorer and then enter keys for authentication in Store Manager. Now, all you have to do is make sure that you have enabled sitemap.xml and your site will be submitted to Yahoo! Site Explorer automatically once it is open for business.

You can opt-in to enabling sitemap.xml from the “Search Engines” link within the Store Manager. For more information about the Sitemap feature, consult the Sitemap help.

By automatically authenticating your site in Site Explorer, and submitting your content, you are ready-to-go to use Site Explorer for its many other features. You can:

• Find out which pages are indexed by Yahoo! Search and when your site was last visited by the crawlers. This gives you a picture of the current state of your site’s presence in search.
• See who is linking to you. You may be able to build even stronger relationships with these sites by reaching out to them personally. You can even look to see who is linking to your competitors. This can give you leads for generating more traffic.
• Delete pages you don’t want indexed from Yahoo! Search
• Let Yahoo! know about the dynamic URL parameters that you want us to rewrite. This can help reduce duplicate pages and link fragmentation from your site.

Auto-authentication for Yahoo! Site Explorer allows you to spend less time on site submission so you can focus on more important tasks to drive traffic such as building better internal links in product descriptions or optimizing your product pages with converting keywords.

Laurie Briggs
Yahoo! Small Business

Editor’s Note: At the SES Site Clinic a few weeks back, Rob Snell, Yahoo! store owner and author, made extensive use of Site Explorer to diagnose linking issues. Not only should you use the tool to view links for your own site, you can also use it as a competitive research tool to check which links your competitors are getting. You may then be able to get links from the same suppliers, groups, or people. Rob will be posting more tips from the Site Clinic session shortly.–Paul

Knowing What’s Right to Write for Product Page Content

All too often I see merchants with stores that have recently opened (or have been open for a while but are complaining about lack of natural search traffic), with product pages that lack sufficient original content. Now while writing for the web means you write less (and make your text scanable with bullet points and shorter line lengths) than you would for a catalog, embracing minimalism with your product content is a sure way to rank poorly with search engines and also deter visitors from becoming buyers.

So how much product content is enough? I have seen sources that list 200-300 words as an ideal and others that recommend 500 words; the trend seems to be moving towards higher word count but use conversion and not just traffic as your overall success metric. The next question then from newer merchants is typically, “How do I write that much?” or “What do I write about to get that many words?”.

Realize though that it is not simply the volume of content you write for products, but the quality as well (hint: keywords). Assuming you have done your homework on keywords and keyphrases research for which you wish the product to rank in search engines, I would recommend two articles with helpful tips on what to write about and the questions to answer for your various buyers.

Writing Smart Copy For Your E-commerce Product Pages

The folks at SEO Igloo have put together an article about 5 topics you can use to shape product content. The topics include:

• Historical
• Modern
• Trends
• Psychology
• Scientific

Some of these will work better than others depending on the type of products you sell, but at the very least they hint at the ways you can transform simple product pages into content-rich pages which search engines may rank higher.

Dishing Out What the Customer Really Wants

This is a great article from the smart marketers at Future Now. I was fortunate enough to hear Howard Kaplan from Future Now speak at the Internet Retailer conference this year. Kaplan talked about the different personas of online shoppers:

• Competitive: cutting edge, early adopters
• Methodical: research and compare, need all the details
• Humanistic: speak to emotional benefits of the product
• Spontaneous: impulse shoppers

The article lists the various questions these visitor types have when shopping. Imagine your job as a copywriter is to be the sales person on the page answering the questions asked by these different personas. The spontaneous buyer may need only a persuasive headline and a compelling price to buy. The methodical buyer will want to see all product specs, any testimonials from other customers, and why to trust you with the purchase. You may not have all of these personas but viewing your product pages in this framework can help overcome any writer’s block and when done properly can boost search traffic and drive additional sales.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

Finnish Gifts Blog Interview

I conducted the following interview with Chad Trent, marketing manager for Finnish Gifts. I had met the owner of the site, Ben Horn, at the Internet Retailer show. After reviewing their store I noticed how they had incorporated a blog. I wanted to find out their reasons for starting a blog and the results they have seen as I’m sure many other merchants have wondered about using a blog with their store.

Finnish Gifts Blog helps to drive product awareness and targeted traffic to Finnish Gifts store.

Tell me a bit about Finnish Gifts and what you sell there? How long have you been with Yahoo!?

As a company, we’ve been on the Yahoo! platform since 2002. FinnishGifts.com is our 2nd store with Yahoo! (it was previously on a different platform) – we now have 3 stores with Yahoo!, and are working on #4 and #5. We sell modern Finnish products; from home accents and tableware to fabric and jewelry – really a wide variety of items. Our most popular and recognizable products are made by Finnish companies iittala and Marimekko.

In looking at your site I noticed you are using a blog. How long have you had a blog and what made you decide to start one?

We’ve had our Finnish Design Blog for about 1-1/2 years. We decided to start a blog as a way to introduce new products and get additional exposure on the search engines.

Which blogging platform did you choose to use and why?

We use the WordPress platform that is part of our hosting package with Yahoo! There are several reasons we chose to go with WordPress: it’s easy to install, easy to customize, and there are many add-ons available, among other things.

Are you using any blog plug-ins to engage with visitors such as polls or send page by email?

At this point, we’ve only been using plug-ins that assist with administration, statistics, and other back-end issues. However, there are many interesting plug-ins available and we plan on experimenting with some more in the near future.

[Paul] Check out my list of YStore blog plug-ins at the end of this post.

What do you discuss on the blog? Is it mainly for showing off new products or do you feature other content as well?

For the most part, we concentrate on introducing new products. It allows us to get our products up quickly and provides another avenue for the search engines to find the new product pages at our website. In addition to showcasing new products, we occasionally will post promotions and product/industry related news.

What sort of results are you seeing with the blog? Are you getting new visitors through the blog or are you mainly connecting with return customers? Are you seeing a higher order conversion rate from visitors that started from or visited the blog?

We have seen good results. Almost all of the visitors to our blog are new visitors that aren’t familiar with our company, so as a vehicle to introduce our company and products to potential new customers it has been a huge success. The conversion rate has been slightly higher than that of visitors who go directly to our website – and many of these visitors are searching for information and are not quite as far along in the buying cycle – so we are happy with the results.

Have you seen any tangible effects on your search engine rankings from using a blog?

Absolutely. Our search engine rankings have improved in a couple areas. First, on the blog itself we use terms and product combinations that we might not typically use on our website. This has resulted in increased exposure for many “Long Tail” terms that we weren’t previously ranking for. Second, we include descriptive links on each post back to the product pages on our website. This has improved the ranking of existing pages on our website.

Any tips or advice you would offer to a merchant thinking about starting a blog?

First, determine the purpose and goals for your blog. Our goal was simply to increase the exposure of our products, but yours might be to interact with customers more or to be an informational resource. Second, decide where you want to put your blog. We chose to use a subdomain (blog.finnishgifts.com), but others might use a different domain, a folder on your domain or a subdomain at a blogging website. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these options, so it’s important to choose what works best for you. Lastly, get to work and stick with it. The sooner you get content on your blog the sooner you’ll start seeing results. It was a slow process for us at first – we were only getting about 10 visitors a day early on – but eventually you will start seeing results as long as you continue to work at it.

Big thanks to Chad for sharing these insights. Merchants should know that in addition to WordPress, which is as noted built into the Web Hosting portion of your account, you can also choose Movable Type, another leading blogging platform.

The hardest part of the whole enterprise will be finding the time and creativity to write new content to keep your blog fresh. However, if you are an expert in your product area (and hopefully that is the reason why you decided to jump into your own particular space in the online retail world) you should have plenty to discuss. Don’t be afraid to show your opinion on products. As Chad notes, the work you do here can reap benefits in terms of search engine rankings so if you are spending too much time trying to improve those, this is one thing you can do to help yourself out, and likely drive a new set of more qualified traffic to your site.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

• Don’t even think of having a blog without activating the Akismet spam plug-in. It catches the vast majority of comment spam.
• Customizable permalinks allow you to share static links which will not change.
• WP-Cache–helps speed up your blog by caching