Available in Stores, now! More on Converting Keywords...

I'm back.  Just got in from our Yahoo Store seminar in LA which we extended a half-day to try to cover all the material retailers wanted to know about. (Hey! You guys ask some tough questions!)

Mike and Istvan rocked, and I think I did pretty well. We had fun, taught a bunch of stuff, met some really cool retailers, and even had a guest appearance by Mr. YstoreTools  himself, Don Cole.

I'll post a TON about LA and seminar stuff later. The San Francisco seminar is filling up fast, so sign up now if you're thinking about going...

Quick New "For Dummies Author" moment:  There's nothing like seeing your book in a real bookstore for the first time. I got chills, Momma! It was so cool! And they had three copies at the STL Borders, too. Then the cashier asked my girlfriend: Are you starting a business?

Girlfriend: (somewhat distracted by her 6 year-old) Uh, no. Why? (she's actually starting a quilt shop site)

Barron: Then why are you buying this book?

Me: (beaming) Because I *wrote* it. And I want to see how it turns out in the end.

Barron: No way. You are not ...(looking at the book cover) ... "Rob Snell."

Pretty funny! And on to something to make you some more money (so you can come to San Francisco!)

MORE ON CONVERTING KEYWORDS -- I got a couple of emails and a blog comment on an earlier post about converting keywords. Folks are asking why retailers should optimize for words they already rank well enough for to get traffic and sales from them. GOOD QUESTION!

M -- Thanks for your blog comment on Converting Keywords!  We covered the exact same topic at the LA seminar.

At first blush, a lot of retailers think by definition, their Yahoo stores are already optimized for their converting keywords because these words are already driving traffic and conversions. Maybe so. Maybe not. First, I'll tell you why, and then I'll give you a real world example.

My definition of being COMPLETELY optimized for a converting keyword phrase is two-fold, covering both the free, organic, natural search listings using SEO and the paid search listings as well buying PPC ads on Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing networks.

FREE SEARCH GOAL: For each converting keyword I want to rank on the first page of results within the first screenshot (top 3 or 5) on each of the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo, & MSN). I do this several ways using pretty basic SEO methods (see CH19 in the book) .

PAID SEARCH GOAL. I want to buy that particular converting word or phrase with a paid search ad that makes sense given a store's particular margin, conversion rate, and ROI goals. You don't have to be in the number one position, but it helps to be on the first page.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE: A good example of an unoptimized converting keyword is the phrase "rope leashes" from my Mom's site.  That particular phrase doesn't even exist on her site. The words rope and leash do, but the phrase doesn't. So I need to add "rope leashes" to a caption somewhere it makes sense. And optimize for it using SEO Secret #23 which I cover in the seminars and in the book.

Here's how I rank today for rope leashes:

• GOOGLE free search #9 for  rope leashes
• GOOGLE Adwords #13 (page 2)*  rope leashes * using my bulk buy technique
• YAHOO free search rank #13 for  rope leashes
• YAHOO Y!SM (not buying that word)
• MSN free #2 for  rope leashes
• MSN PPC (Y!SM (not buying that word) < Until MSN stops using Y!SM

At the LA seminar, the sample order for dog training collars we looked at with a converting keyword phrase was from October 2005, but even today we're ranked so-so which means I'm falling a bit short for that keyword phrase. I need to pimp up my SEO and buy a Y!SM ad next time I buy a whole bunch of ads. There's a lot of opportunity there, if I think rope leashes are important enough to optimize for (and I do!)

Does this make sense? More on all your emails in a bit...

Rob