Once a year we perform routine upgrades to ensure our network remains fast and secure. This year we’ve deployed new hardware for the web and mail servers which are now three times as fast with twice the memory, and we’ve also introduced a number of minor changes to our software environment to ensure our customer’s remain protected against the latest security threats.

Work to complete these upgrades was carried out over night and no downtime was involved on customer’s services, but if you have any queries then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Channel Advisor is web-based software which provides a centralised product and order management facility, enabling merchant’s with multiple sales channels to centralise administration.

For example merchants who operate more than one eCommerce website, or who trade on Ebay as well as their own website, may benefit from integrating CS-Cart with Channel Advisor.

Merchants with multiple sales channels often face additional challenges, for example ensuring that stock levels and price information is up to date at all points of sale, whilst ensuring that orders received from several difference sources are collated and handled in a consistent and efficient manner.

Our eCommerce Intergrated package is designed to address these merchant’s requirements by connecting their CS-Cart based eCommerce website with their Channel Advisor account.

Once connected their store will perform regular, fully automated import of product information including stock level, pricing descriptions and images from their Channel Advisor account.

Similarly the store will automatically export orders received via the website to Channel Advisor where they can be handled alongside orders from other sources such as Ebay or the high-street.

The integration of CS-Cart with Channel Advisor is just one of many examples of how we help merchant’s to trade on-line more effectively. For advice regarding eCommerce integration or to disucss any other aspect of your project please call us on 0845 880 1221.

You can find further information regarding Channel Advisor at www.channeladvisor.co.uk and further information regarding CS-Cart at www.cs-cart.com.

You’re just about to launch your shiny new eCommerce website with all the bells and whistles and a great range of products and so you’re explaining to your internet marketing company how you would really like to be number one on Google for searches such as “DVD players”.

Well yes, of course you would, and one day you may be.

But here’s the rub. Competition to appear in the number one spot for that search phrase and other broad searches like it is going to be intense, and realistically speaking as a new merchant your going to loose out to other merchants with well established stores.

That’s an unfortunate truth which few internet marketing companies seem willing to admit. Promises are made and the deal is done, but twelve months later the merchant finds herself sat around the same boardroom table having the same discussion all over again.

You’d really, really like to be number one for “DVD players”. Please?

We’d like to propose a more realistic marketing strategy which has been working well for some of the merchants with whom we work.

It’s called the long tail.

If you’re a marketing professional you may have heard of it, but here we’ll explain how it applies to search engine marketing for merchants.

Here’s what the long tail looks like:

The graph shows the popularity of search phrases for any given subject, say all the possible searches by people looking to buy a DVD player.

To the left of the graph are those few search phrases which dominate in terms of frequency, say “DVD players” and “DVD recorders”, and a small number of similarly broad searches.

To the right is the graph’s long tail. See how it looks like a tail? See how it’s long, and how it trails off slowly compared to the short, sharp decline of the searches on the left?

This is where all the other search phrases someone looking to buy a DVD player might perform are found. Searches like “Panasonic DVD-S29EB-S dvd recorder”, and many others, usually equally specific.

Although these searches are infrequent compared to broader searches competition for them may be comparatively light.

If you sell a wide range of unique products and provide detailed product information in a search engine friendly manner then there’s a good chance – a realistic chance – you’ll be able to grab first place.

And their value should not be underestimated. Consider the likelihood of converting someone searching for “DVD players” to a sale, compared to someone searching for “Panasonic DVD-S29EB-S dvd recorder”.

The person who performed the broad search doesn’t really know what they’re looking for, they’re unsure of the brand or model they want, and they could have a budget anywhere between £10 and £1,000.

The person who performed the more specific search on the other hand knows exaclty what they’re looking for: they want a a Panasonic DVD-S29EB-S at a competative price, and if they’ve found your website with such a specific search then there’s a good chance you sell it.

The long tail is the solution to many merchant’s organic search engine problems. Successfully targeting a wide range of highly specific searches with low volumes will be more effective than unsuccessfully targeting a handful of broad searches.

You’ll need to take care to provide detailed product information on your product details page, and the wider the range of products the better it’ll work out for you, but with only a little effort you’ll be able to avoid next year’s meeting.

If you would like to talk to us about how the long tail can help increase sales on your store then please call us on 0845 880 1221. For further reading we recommend Chris Anderson’s excellent The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand.

It’s a good question, especially when you consider it can take several months before any worthwhile results appear in the search engines, and literally years of work before a store becomes well established.

One solution we’re recommending to our merchants is Google Products. This is yet another search service offered by Google, in this case one specialised at listing actual products, as opposed to the web-pages they’re described on.

Our eCommerce software can talk directly to Google’s systems, uploading a merchant’s product details and images at the click of a button, getting their products listed within 24 hours. That’s a great feature, even if we do say so ourselves.

Google Products works best for stores which sell fixed price products, and of course your prices need to be competitive. It works less well for products with a monthly service charge, and doesn’t handle product options at all.

There’s a dedicated Google Products search interface, but more importantly when Google determines that a user performing a traditional Google search is looking for a product then it includes selected products in the regular results.

We’ve been delighted with the results we’ve been achieving through Google products. The last store we launched took it’s first order from a Google Products referral within hours of launch, and there’s been hundreds more since.

Google Products is one of several ways we can help merchants launching a new store to hit the ground running. If you’d like to have a chat about how we can help call us on 0845 880 1221, or for further details see Google’s Information for Merchants.

We discussed how when you perform a search on Google your search is classified as one of either navigational, informational, or transactional, and how the search is classified has a big impact on the results Google provides.

An example of a search likely to be classified as navigational is “hotmail”, or even “www.hotmail.com”. Yes, many people search for web-addresses they already know. No, it doesn’t make any sense. But hey, it works.

When you search on “hotmail” it’s obvious to Google that your performing a navigational search; your asking it to direct you straigt to the appropriate website, and so irrespective of how other pages would naturally rank for that keyword it’s going to give www.hotmail.com as the first result. It makes sense.

Google often serves Wikipedia pages as the first results for searches which it classifies as informational, irrespective of how the page would naturally rank for the phrase searched on. It may seem that Wikipedia has an unfair advantage, but in fact in the case of most informational searches the summary provided by Wikipedia is by far the most useful result.

The consequence is that merchants who won’t settle for anything less than position one should think twice before attempting to target a search phrase which is likely to be classified as informational. You won’t beat Wikipedia.

In a world where content is king, Wikipedia rules.

Finally we come to transactional searches. It’s these searches you should be considering. Any search phrase including a word such as “buy” is likely to be classified as a transactional search, as will many searches which closely match the make and model of products listed in the Google Products system. Indeed, its these searches where Google includes results from Google Products in the regular search results.

Search classifications can also be combined, for example a search on “Sony Mobile Phones” could be any one of navigational (the Sony website), informational (specifications and reviews) or transactional (products for sale). In these cases Google will attempt to cover all bases: you’ll often see the manufacturer’s website listed first, followed by an appropriate Wikipedia page, and then finally many results for shopping portals and retailer’s websites.

When trying to understand how your website performs on the search engines it’s important to consider how the search phrase in question is likely to be classified: navigational, informational or transactional. This will help you better understand the results Google gives, which will alow you to better predict how your likely to rank for that search.