Yahoo! Stores Introducing Cross-Sell and Keyword Enhancements for the Holidays

Posted on October 19, 2007
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We know that the Yahoo! Store Blog is everyone’s top reading priority. But in case you’re a few posts behind, Yahoo! got merchants everywhere to take a breather from their pre-holiday panic attacks by announcing two key enhancements to the Yahoo! Stores platform in the areas of merchandising and SEO.

In his September 25 post, Jimmy Duvall outlines the benefits of these upgrades, specifically:

New automated cross-sell ability on both your product pages and your shopping cart! Even better, shopper behavior on your site feeds the cross-sell engine—so the products automatically displayed as cross-sell recommendations will be relevant to their interests. (Big Brother IS watching!)
New keyword tool that ranks converting keywords for you! Not only will you see what terms convert…but exactly what terms specifically convert what products. (No such thing as TMI in this case.)

All good news to be sure…but, it’s hard not to feel behind before you get started when thinking about what Yahoo!’s announcement means to your store this close to Christmas. Before you get overwhelmed thinking about ANOTHER thing to add to your holiday prep to-do list, we suggest:

Shopping your site TODAY. Start with your most popular products and click through the purchase process from beginning to end, looking for where, how, and when to introduce cross-sell displays. Group your products into 3-5 item collections. Then consider presenting 2-4 item cross-sell displays that present the other associated collection items when an individual product is displayed.
Getting your head around your SEO analytics ASAP. With search replacing traditional ads, holiday season competition will be cutthroat for good organic and paid search placement. If you’re the type to get behind in your SEO work, this calm before the storm that starts November 1 is the perfect time to make sure you know where you stand.

We also suggest reading our Oct. 8 blog post for more thoughts on S*H*O*P*P*I*N*G* your site in prep for the holidays. Still have questions? Contact FastPivot today to schedule a 20 minute call to learn more how Yahoo! cross-selling and SEO review can help you convert more shoppers this holiday season.

Feliz Naviblog … Nogging and Blogging for the Holidays.

Posted on September 6, 2007
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Admit it. You want to connect with your customers—before Christmas. You want to create marketing buzz for your holiday shoppers. You want to blog.

The positive influence and increased use of blogs is undeniable. They’re EVERYWHERE. Perhaps blog marketing and business blogging was once considered a passing online fad, but no longer - the era of the blogosphere is here. So we think good prep for the holiday shopping season is eggnog and a blog!

Whether your business is small or large, blogs can serve many purposes. They are a terrific way to:

Share your company’s expertise
Provide and generate free PR and marketing (for you and afflilates)
Draw more traffic to your site
Allow customers to interact with your company and each other.

Here at FastPivot, we know blogs mean business…more readers come to our site through our blog than almost any other page. But we’re not the only blog fans . . . a Yahoo study conducted earlier this year indicates that shoppers who are exposed to online advertising tend to research or ‘pre-shop’ their prospective products online. In fact, the online “pre-search” community generated 41% more brick and mortar sales than those who do not research or “pre-shop” in any way.

For retailers looking to attract the info-hungry “pre-searcher”, the blog is an excellent way to use a free online information channel and draw these looking-to-spend shoppers to your product or service. Consumers who read, or see something they like, can be your best publicity.

So, what does this mean to you? Taking a page from the Yahoo study, it means that consumers purchase items that meet their online information expectations. It means you, the Yahoo!Store merchant, should create a site that not only facilitates shopping, but also gives easy access to vital information that makes shoppers buy. It means even merchants without big budget advertising can utilize content rich blogs to lure holiday ecommerce and in-store shoppers.

So, before the sleigh bells start to ring . . . to the top of the page, to the top of the site…blog away, blog away, blog away all.

Check out Fast Pivot customer blogs at: http://racing.biowheels.com/ and http://www.beachsimple.com/

Source: http://www.marketingvox.com/